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ALL ALONG THE RIVER 



AUTHOR OF “WHOSE WAS THE HAND?” “TO THE BITTER END,” 
“VIXEN,” “AURORA FLOYD,” “BIRDS OF PREY,” “ THE CLOVEN 
FOOT,” “DARRELL MARKHAM,” “DEAD MEN’S SHOES,” 

“ DIAVOLA,” “ELEANOR’S VICTORY,” “HENRY 
DUNBAR,” “JOSHUA HOGGAN’S DAUGHTER,” 

“ LADY AUDLEY’S SECRET,” “ MARRIED 
IN HASTE,” “ ONLY A WOMAN,” 

“ WEAVERS AND WEFT,” ETC. 





NEW YORK 

CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY 

104 & 106 Fourth Avenue 



Copyright, 1893. by 

CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY. 


All rights reserved. 




THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, 
RAHWAY, N. J. 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


CHAPTER I. 

“the rain set early in to-night.” 

It had been raining all the morning, and it was raining 
still, in that feeble and desultory manner which presages a 
change of some kind, when the postman came with the 
long expected Indian letter. 

He was later than usual. It was nearly two o’clock, and 
Isola had been watching for him since one. She had been 
sitting by the open window, with an unread book in her lap, 
looking out at the wet landscape, the glistening hedgerow 
and dull gray river, with the great green hill beyond, a 
steep slope of meadow land, dotted with red cattle, and so 
divided by hedgerows as to look like a Titanic chessboard. 

At last she heard the familiar tread of the postman’s 
heavy boots, and saw his shining oilskin hat moving above 
the edge of the hollies, and heard the click of the iron latch 
as he came into the little garden. 

She called to him from the window, and he came tramp- 
ing across the sodden grass and put her letters into her 
outstretched hand. 

One from her married sister in Hans Place. That would 
keep. One from an old schoolfellow. That would keep. 


2 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


And one — the long looked for Indian letter, which she tore 
open eagerly and read hurriedly, devouring the close lines 
in the neat black penmanship, with its decided up and 
down strokes, and legible characters, so firm, so strong, so 
straightforward, like the nature of the man who wrote the 
letter. 

The tears sprang to her eyes as she came to the end, and 
her hands crushed the thin paper in a paroxysm of vexation 
or despair. 

“Six months — perhaps a year, before he can come back, 
and I am to go on living here — alone, unless I like to send 
for a girl whose face I never saw to keep me company and 
cheer me with her good spirits. I want no strange girls. I 
want no one’s good spirits. I hate people with good spirits. 
I want him, and nobody but him! It is hard that we 
should be parted like this. I ought to have gone with him, 
in spite of all the doctors in Christendom.’’ 

She relented toward the letter which her feverish hand 
had used so badly. She smoothed out the flimsy paper 
carefully with that pretty little hand, and then she reread 
the husband’s letter, so full of grave tenderness and fond, 
consoling words. 

He was with his regiment in Burmah, and the present 
aspect of things gave him no hope of being able to return 
to England for the next half year, and there was no cer- 
tainty that the half year might not be stretched into a whole 
year. The separation could not be more irksome to his 
dearest Isola. than it was to him, her husband of little more 
than a year; but not for worlds would he have exposed her 
to the risks of that climate. He took comfort in thinking 
of her in the snug little Cornish nest, with his good Tabitha. 

Isola kissed the letter before she put it in her pocket, and 
then she looked round the room rather dolefully, as if the 
Cornish nest were not altogether paradise. And yet it was 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


3 


a pretty little room enough, half dining room, half study, 
with handsomely bound books on carved oak shelves, and 
photographs and bright draperies, and cozily cushioned 
bamboo chairs, and a bird cage, and a Persian cat. Nor 
was the garden outside flowerless, even on the threshold of 
winter. The purple blossoms of the veronica were 
untouched by frost; there were pale tea roses gleaming 
yonder against the dark gloss of holly and laurel. There were 
star-shaped single dahlias of vividest red, like spots of flame; 
and close under the open window, last splendor of departed 
summer, the waxen chalice of a lilium auratum trembled on 
its tall stem, and filled the room with perfume. 

The rain was over — the monotonous drip, drip, which 
had irritated Isola’s nerves all that morning, had ceased at 
last. She left the modest little lunch untouched upon the 
table, and went out into the hall, where her hat and jacket 
hung handy for any impromptu ramble. No need to look 
at one’s self in the glass before going out of doors at twenty 
years of age, and in such a place as Trelasco. Isola took 
her stick from the stand, a green orange stick, bought in 
the sunny South on her way to Venice with her husband 
last year, a leisurely trip, which had been to them as a 
second honeymoon after a few happy months of wedlock. 
Then had come the sadness of parting, and a swift and 
lonely return journey for the young wife — a lonely return 
to the Angler’s Rest, Trelasco, that cozy cottage between 
Lostwithiel and Fowey, which Major Disney had bought 
and furnished before his marriage. He was a son of the 
soil, and he had chosen to pitch his tent in that remote spot 
for the sake of old associations, and from a fixed belief that 
there was no locality of equal merit for health, beauty, and 
all other virtues which a man should seek in his home. 

Isola rarely touched that stick without remembering the 
day it was bought — a rainy day in Milan — just such a day 


4 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


as this — a low gray sky, and an oppressive mildness of 
atmosphere. She remembered, with the sick pain that goes 
with long partings, how she and her husband had dawdled 
away an afternoon in the Victor Emmanuel Gallery, buy- 
ing handkerchiefs and neckties, a book or two, a collection 
of photographs, and finally the orange stick. 

She went out to walk down her depression before tea 
time if possible. She went along a narrow path to the river, 
then turned into a road that skirted those green pastures 
which rose sheer till the ragged edge of the topmost bound- 
ary seemed to touch the dim gray sky. She passed the 
village inn, deadly quiet at this season and at this hour. 
She passed the half-dozen decent cottages and the three or 
four genteeler houses, each in its neatly kept garden, and 
she walked with quick, light step along the wet road, her 
useful tailor gown well clear of the mud, her stick striking 
the hedgerow now and then as she swung it to and fro in 
dreamy thought. 

A long, lonely winter to look forward to — a winter like 
the last — with her books and drawing board, and her cot- 
tage piano, and the cat, and the fox terriers, and Tabitha 
for her daily companions. There were a few neighbors 
within a radius of half a dozen miles who had been very 
civil to her; who called upon her, say once in six weeks; 
who sometimes invited her to a stately dinner party, and 
sometimes at a suspiciously short notice, which made her 
feel she was wanted to fill a gap; who made her free of 
their tennis lawns ; and who talked to her on Sundays after 
church, and were always very particular in inquiring for 
any news from India. There was not one among them for 
whom she cared; not one to whom she would have liked to 
pour out her thoughts about Keats or Shelley, or to whom 
she would have confided her opinion of Byron. She was 
more interested in Bulwer’s “Audley Egerton” than in any 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


5 


of those flesh-and-blood neighbors. She was happier sitting 
by her chimney corner with a novel than in the best society 
available within a drive of Trelasco. 

She struck off the highroad into a lane, a lane that led to 
the base of a wilder hill than that where the red cattle were 
grazing. The crest of the hill was common land, and dark 
fit trees made a waving line against the autumn sky, and 
the view from the summit was wide and varied, with a 
glimpse of the great brown cliffs and the dark gray sea far 
off to the west, to that dim distance where the Dodman shut 
off the watery way to the New World. On the landward 
slope of that wild-looking ridge was The Mount, Lord 
Lostwithiel’s place, uninhabited for the greater part of the 
year except by servants, his lordship being the very last 
kind of man to bury himself alive in a remote Cornish 
fastness, a long day’s journey from the London theaters 
and the Thames Yacht Club. 

Who was Lord Lostwithiel? Well, in the estimation of 
Trelasco he was the only nobleman in England, or say that 
he was to all other peers as the sun to the other planets. 
He belonged to Trelasco by reason of his large landed 
estate and the accident of his birth, which had taken place 
at The Mount; and although his character and way of life 
were not altogether satisfactory to the village mind, Tre- 
lasco made the best of him. 

Isola Disney climbed the hill, an easy matter to light- 
footed twenty. She stood amid the tall fir columns, and 
looked down at the November landscape, very distinctly 
defined in the soft gray atmosphere. She could see the 
plow moving slowly across the red earth in the fields below, 
the clumsy farm horses, white against the deep rich red. 
She could see the winding river, bluish-gray between its 
willowy banks, and far off beyond Fowey wooded hills, 
where the foliage showed orange, and tawny, and russet, 


6 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


and dun color between the blue-gray water and the pale 
gray sky. 

She loved this wild, lonely hill, and felt her spirits rise 
in this lighter atmosphere as she stood resting against the 
scaly trunk of a Scotch fir, with the wind blowing her hair. 
It was a relief to escape from the silence of those empty 
rooms, where she had only the sleepy Persian or the hyper- 
intelligent fox terrier for company. There was a longer 
and more picturesque way home than that by which she 
had come. She could descend the other side of the hill, 
skirt the gardens of The Mount by a path that led through 
the park, and which was free to foot passengers. It was 
one of her favorite walks, and she was so accustomed to 
seeing the shutters closed at the great house that she never 
expected to meet anyone more alarming than a farm servant 
or a cottager’s child upon the footpath. 

There was a thick chestnut copse upon one side, and the 
wide expanse of undulating turf, with an occasional clump 
of choice timber, upon the other. The house stood on 
higher ground than the park, but was hemmed in and 
hidden by shrubberies that had overgrown the intention of 
the landscape gardener who planned them. Only the old 
gray stone gables, with their heavy slabs of slate, and the 
tall clustered chimneys showed above the copper beeches, 
and deodaras, and laurels, and junipers, and Irish yews, 
and the shining masses of arbutus with their crimson berries 
gleaming among the green. Isola had never seen that old 
manor house nearer than she saw it to-day from the path, 
which was a public right of way through the park. She 
knew that the greater part of the building dated from the 
reign of Charles II., but that there were older bits; and 
that about the whole, and about these ancient rooms and 
passages most especially, there were legends and traditions 
and historical associations, not without the suspicion of 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


7 


ghosts. The Mount was not a show place, like the home 
of the Treffrys at Fowey, and of late years it had been very 
seldom inhabited, except by certain human fossils who had 
served the house of Hulbert for two generations. She had 
often looked longingly at those quaint old gables, those 
clustered stone chimneys, likening the house amid its over- 
grown shrubberies to the Palace of the Sleeping Beauty, 
and had wished that she were on friendly terms with one of 
those drowsy old retainers. 

“I dare say if I were daring enough to open one of the 
doors and go in I should find them all asleep,” she thought, 
“and I might roam all over the house from cellar to garret 
without awakening anybody.” She was too depressed 
to-day to give more than a careless, unseeing glance at 
those many gables as she walked along the muddy path 
beside the dripping copse. The chestnut boughs were 
nearly bare, but here and there a cluster of bright yellow 
leaves were still hanging, shining like pale gold in the last 
watery gleams of the sun; and though the leaves were lying 
sodden and brown among the rank, wet grass, there were 
emerald mosses, and cool green ferns, and red and orange 
fungi to give color to the foreground, and to the little 
vistas that opened here and there amid the underwood. 

Those final yellow gleams were fading low down in the 
western sky as Isola turned her face toward the river and 
the Angler’s Nest, and just above that pale radiance there 
stretched a dense black cloud, like a monstrous iron bar, 
which she felt must mean mischief. She looked at that 
black line apprehensively. She was three miles from home, 
without cloak or umbrella, and with no available shelter 
within three-quarters of a mile. 

She quickened her pace, watching the fading light and 
lowering cloud, expecting thunder, lightning, hail, she knew 
not what. A sudden deluge settled the question. Tor- 


8 


ALL ALONG TILE RIVER. 


rential rain ! That was the meaning of the inky bar above 
the setting sun. She looked round her helplessly. Should 
she dart into the copse, and try to shelter herself amid those 
leafless twigs, those slender withies and saplings? Better 
to face the storm and plod valiantly on. Her neat little 
cloth gown would not be much the worse for a ducking; 
her neat little feet were accustomed to rapid walking. 
Should she run? No; useless when there were three miles 
to be got over. A brisk, steady tramp would be better. 
But brave as she was, that fierce rain was far from pleas- 
ant. It cut into her eyes and blinded her. She had to 
grope her way along the path with her stick. 

“Pray let me take you to the house,” said a voice close 
beside her, a man’s voice — low and deep, and with the 
accents of refinement. 

Could one of Lord Lostwithiel’s fossilized servants talk 
like that? Impossible. She looked up, as well as she 
could under that blinding downpour, and saw a tall man 
standing beside the pathway with his back to the copse. 
Like Rosalind, he was “more than common tall,” and of 
slim, active figure. He was pale, and wore a short, dark 
beard, and the eyes which looked at Isola out of the pale thin 
face were very dark. That was about as much as she could 
see of the stranger in the November dusk. 

“Pray let me persuade you to come to the house,” he 
said urgently. “You are being drenched. It is absolutely 
dreadful to see anybody out in such rain, and there is no 
other shelter within reach. Let me take you there. My 
housekeeper will dry your hat and jacket for you. I ought 
to introduce myself, perhaps. I am Lord Lostwithiel. ” 

She had guessed as much. Who else would speak with 
authority in that place? She dimly recalled a photograph, 
pale and faded, of a tall man in a yeomanry uniform, seen 
in somebody’s album; and the face of the photograph had 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


9 


been the same elongated oval face — with long, thin nose, and 
dark eyes a shade too near together — which was looking down 
at her anxiously now. 

She felt it would be churlish to refuse shelter so earnestly 
offered. 

“You are very kind,” she faltered. “I am sorry to be 
so troublesome. I ought not to have come so far in such 
doubtful weather.” 

She went with him meekly, walking her fastest under the 
pelting rain, which was at her back now as they made for 
the house. 

“Have you really come far?” he asked. 

“From Trelasco. I live at the Angler’s Nest, a cottage 
by the river. You know it, perhaps?” 

“Yes. I know every house at Trelasco. Then you are 
staying with Mrs. Disney, I presume.” 

“I am Mrs. Disney.” 

“You?” with intense surprise. “I beg your pardon. 
You are so young. I imagined Mrs. Disney an older 
person.” 

He glanced at the girlish figure, the pale, delicate face, 
and told himself that his new acquaintance could scarcely 
be more than nineteen or twenty. He had met Major 
Disney, a man who looked about forty — a lucky fellow to 
have caught such a pretty bird as this. 

They had reached the shrubbery by this time, and were 
hurrying along a winding walk where the rain reached them 
with less violence. The narrow walk brought them on to a 
broad terrace in front of the house. Lostwithiel opened 
a half-glass door, and led Mrs. Disney into the library, a 
long, low room, full of curious nooks and corners, formed 
by two massive chimney-pieces, and by the projecting wings 
of the heavy oak bookcases. Isola had never seen any 
room so filled with books, nor had she ever seen a room 


IO 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


with two such chimney-pieces, of statuary marble, yellowed 
with age, elaborately carved with cherubic heads, and 
Cupids, and torches, and festal wreaths, bows and arrows, 
lyres and urns. 

A wood fire was burning upon one hearth, and it was 
hither Lostwithiel brought his guest, wheeling a large arm- 
chair in front of the blaze. 

“If you will take off your hat and jacket, and sit down 
there, I’ll get my housekeeper to attend to you,” he said, 
with his hand upon the bell. 

“You are more than kind. I must hurry home directly 
the rain abates a little. I have a good old servant who is 
sure to be anxious about me,” said Isola, devouring the 
room with greedy eyes, anxious to take in every detail of 
this enchanted castle. 

She might never enter it again, perhaps. Lord Lost- 
withiel was so seldom here. His absenteeism was the 
lament of the neighborhood. The things he ought to have 
done and did not do would have filled a book. He had 
been wild in his youth. He had once owned a theater. 
He had done, or was supposed to have done, things which 
were spoken of with bated breath ; but of late years he had 
developed new ambitions, and had done with theatrical 
speculations. He had become literary, scientific, political. 
He was one of the lights of the intellectual world, or of that 
small section of the intellectual world which is affiliated to 
the smart world. He knew all the clever people in London, 
and a good many of the intellectualities of Paris, Berlin, 
and Vienna. He had never married; but it was supposed 
that he would eventually marry, before he was forty, for 
instance, and that he would make a great match. He was 
not rich, but he was Lord Lostwithiel. He was by no 
means handsome, but he was said to be one of the most 
fascinating men in London. 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


ii 


Isola pulled off her jacket slowly, looking about her all 
the time; and Lostwithiel forbore from offering her any 
assistance lest he should intensify her evident shyness. 

A man in plain clothes, who looked more like a valet 
than a butler, answered the bell. 

“Send Mrs. Mayne, and bring tea,” ordered his lordship. 

What a slender, girlish form it was which the removal of 
the tweed jacket revealed. The slim waist and somewhat 
narrow shoulders betokened a delicacy of constitution. 
The throat was beautiful, milk white, the throat of Diana, 
and the head, now the hat was off, would also have done 
for Diana — a small classic head, with soft brown hair drawn 
smoothly away from the low white brow and rolled into a 
knot at the back. The features were as delicate as the 
complexion, in which there was no brilliancy of coloring, 
only a paleness as of ivory. The eyes were dark gray, with 
long brown lashes, and their present expression was between 
anxiety and wondering interest. Lostwithiel was not such 
a coxcomb as to appropriate that look of interest. He saw 
that it was his house and not himself which inspired the 
feeling. 

“You like old houses, I can see, Mrs. Disney,” he said, 
smiling at her. 

“Dearly. Th$y are histories in brick and stone, are they 
not? I dare say there are stories about this room.” 

“Innumerable stories. I should have to ransack the 
Record Office for some of them, and to draw upon a very 
bad memory to a perilous extent for others.” 

“Is it haunted?” 

“I am not one of those privileged persons who see 
ghosts — neither seventh son of a seventh son nor of the 
mediumistic temperament ; but I have heard of an appari- 
tion pervading the house on occasions, and being seen in 
this room, which is one of the older rooms, a part of that 


12 


ALL ALONG THE ELVER. 


building which was once a grange appertaining to a certain 
small monastery, put down by Henry VIII., and recorded 
in the Black Book. As one of the oldest rooms it is nat- 
urally uncanny; but as I have never suffered any incon- 
venience in that line, I make it my den.” 

‘‘It is the most picturesque room I ever saw. And what 
a multitude of books!” exclaimed Isola. 

‘‘Yes; I have a good many books. I am always buying; 
but I find I never have exactly the book I want. And as I 
have no librarian, I am too apt to forget the books I have. 
If I could afford to spend more of my life at The Mount I 
would engage some learned gentleman whose life had been 
a failure to take care of my books. Are you Cornish, like 
your husband, Mrs. Disney?” 

‘‘No. I was born at Dinan.” 

‘‘What! in that mediaeval Breton city! You are not 
French, though, I think?” 

‘‘My mother and father were both English, but my sister 
and I were born and brought up in Brittany.” 

Lostwithiel questioned no further. He had a shrewd 
idea that when English people live for a good many years 
in a Breton town they have reasons of their own, generally 
financial, for their choice of a settlement. He was a man 
who could not have spent six months of his life away from 
London or Paris. 

The housekeeper made her appearance and offered her 
services. She wrung the rain out of Isola’s cloth skirt, and 
wiped the muddy hem. She took charge of the jacket and 
hat, and at Lostwithiel’s suggestion she remained to pour 
out the tea. She was a very dignified person in a black 
silk gown and a lace cap, and she treated her master as if 
he had been a demigod. Isola could not be afraid of 
taking tea in this matronly presence, yet she kept looking 
nervously toward the window in front of her, where the 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


13 


rain beat with undiminished force, and where the darkening 
sky told of impending night. 

“I see you are anxious to be on your way home, Mrs. 
Disney,” said Lostwithiel, who had nothing to do but watch 
her face, such an expressive face at all times, so pictur- 
esquely beautiful when touched by the flickering light of 
the wood fire. ‘‘If you were to wait for fine weather you 
might be here all night, and your good people at home 
would be frantic. I’ll order a carriage, and you can be at 
home in three-quarters of an hour.” 

“Oh, no, Lord Lostwithiel, I couldn’t give you so much 
trouble. If your housekeeper will be so kind as to lend me 
a cloak and umbrella I can get home very well. And I 
had better start at once.” 

‘‘In the rain, alone, and in the darkness? It will be 
dark before you are home, in any case. No, Mrs. Disney, 
if I were to permit such a thing I should expect Major 
Disney to call me out directly he came home. He is in 
India, I think.” 

‘‘Yes. He is with his regiment in Burmah.” 

‘‘Do you expect him home soon?” 

‘‘Not very soon; not for six months or perhaps longer. 
It was that which made me walk so far.” 

Lostwithiel looked puzzled. 

‘‘I mean that I was so disappointed by his letter — a letter 
I received to-day — that I went out for a long ramble to 
walk down my bad spirits if I could, and hardly knew how 
far I was going. It has made me inflict trouble on you 
and Mrs. ” 

‘‘Mayne. Both Mrs. Mayne and I are delighted to be of 
use to you. Order the station brougham, Dalton, immedi- 
ately,” to the man who answered his bell. ‘‘The carriage 
can hardly be ready in less than twenty minutes, so pray 
try to do justice to Mrs. Mayne’ s tea.” 


14 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


“It is delicious tea, 8 ’ said Isola, enjoying the fireglow, 
and the dancing lights upon the richly bound books in all 
their varieties of coloring, from black and crimson and 
orange-tawny to creamy vellum. 

She was evidently relieved in her mind by the knowledge 
that she was to be driven home presently. 

“If you are really interested in this old house you must 
come some sunny morning and let Mrs. Mayne show you 
over it,” said Lostwithiel, establishing himself with his cup 
and saucer upon the other side of the hearth. “She knows 
all the old stories, and she has a better memory than I.” 

“I should like so much to do so next summer, when my 
husband can come with me.” 

“I’m afraid Major Disney won’t care much about the old 
place. He is a native of these parts, and must have been 
here often in my father’s time. I shall hope to receive you 
both if I am here next October for the shooting — but there 
is no need to relegate your inspection of the house to a 
remote future. Come on the first fine morning that you 
have nothing better to do. Mrs. Mayne is always at home; 
and I am almost always out of doors in the morning. You 
can have the house to yourselves, and talk about ghosts to 
your hearts’ content.’’ 

“Oh, my lord, I hope I know better than to say anything 
disrespectful of the house,’’ protested Mrs. Mayne. 

“My dear Mayne, a family ghost is as respectable an 
institution as a family tree.’’ 

Isola murmured some vague acknowledgment of his 
civility. She was far too shy to have any idea of taking 
advantage of his offer. To re-enter that house alone of her 
own accord would be impossible. By and by, with her 
husband at her side, she would be bold enough to do any- 
thing, to accept any hospitality that Lostwithiel might be 
moved to offer. He would invite Martin, perhaps, for the 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


*5 

shooting, or to a luncheon or a dinner. She wondered 
vaguely if she would ever possess a gown good enough to 
wear at a dinner party in such a house. 

After this there came a brief silence. Mrs. Mayne stood 
straight and prim behind the tea table. Nothing would 
have induced her to sit in his lordship’s presence, albeit she 
had dandled him in her arms when there was much less of 
him than of the cambric and fine flannel which composed 
his raiment, and albeit his easy familiarity might have 
invited some forgetfulness of caste distinctions. Mrs. 
Mayne fully understood that she was wanted there to set the 
stranger at her ease, and she performed her mission; but 
even her presence could not lessen Isola’s shyness. She 
felt like a bird caught in a net, or fluttering in the grasp of 
some strong but kindly hand. She sat listening for car- 
riage wheels, and only hearing the dull thumping of her 
own scared heart. 

And yet he was so kind, and yet he so fully realized her 
idea of highbred gentleness, that she need hardly have 
been so troubled by the situation. She stole a glance at 
him as he stood by the chimney-piece, in a thoughtful atti- 
tude, looking down at the burning logs on the massive old 
andirons. The firelight shining on a face above it will 
often give a sinister look to the openest countenance; and 
to-night Lostwithiel’s long, narrow face, dark, deep-set 
eyes, and pointed beard had some touch of the diabolical in 
that red and uncertain glow — an effect that was but instan- 
taneous, for as the light changed the look passed, and she 
saw him as he really was, with his pale and somewhat 
sunken cheeks, and eyes darkly grave, of exceeding 
gentleness. 

“Have you lived long at the Angler’s Rest, Mrs. Dis- 
ney?’’ he asked at last. 

“Nearly a year and a half; ever since my marriage, with 


i6 


ALL ALONG THE El FEE. 


just one interval on the Continent before Martin went to 
India.” 

“Then I need not ask if you are heartily sick of the 
place?” 

“Indeed I should not be tired of the cottage or the 
neighborhood if my husband were at home. I am only 
tired of solitude. He wants me to send for his sister — a 
girl who has not long left school — to keep me company; 
but I detest schoolgirls, and I would much rather be alone 
than put up with a silly companion.” 

“You are wise beyond your years, Mrs. Disney. Avoid 
the sister, by all means. She would bore you to death — a 
scampering, exuberant girl, who would develop hysteria 
after one month of Cornish dullness. Besides, I am sure 
you have resources of your own, and that you would rather 
endure solitude than uncongenial company.” 

Isola sighed and shook her head rather dolefully, 
tracing the pattern of the Persian rug with the point of her 
stick. 

“I am very fond of books and of music, v she said; “but 
one gets tired of being alone after a time. It seems such 
ages since Martin and I said good-by in Venice. I was 
dreadfully unhappy at first. I stand almost alone in the 
world when I am parted from him.” 

“Your father and mother are dead?” in gentlest inquiry. 

“Oh, no; they are not dead; they are at Dinan,” she 
said, almost as if it were the same thing. 

“And that is very far from Trelasco.” 

“They never leave Dinan* The kind of life suits them. 
Mamma knits; papa has his club and his English news- 
papers. People enjoy the English papers so much more 
when they live abroad than when they are at home. 
Mamma is a very bad sailor. It would be a risk for her to 
cross. If my sister or I were dangerously ill mamma 


ALL ALONG THE RLVER. 17 

would come. But it would be at the hazard of her life. 
Papa has often told me so.” 

“And your father, is he a bad sailor?” 

“He is rather worse than mamma.” 

“Then I conclude you were married at Dinan?” 

“Oh, yes; I never left Brittany until my wedding day.” 

What a pretty idea ! It is as if Major Disney had found 
a new kind of wild flower in some nook or cranny of the 
old gray wall that guards the town.” 

“You know Dinan?” 

“There are very few places within easy reach of a yachts- 
man that I don’t know. I have anchored in almost every 
bay between Cherbourg and Brest, and have rambled inland 
whenever there was anything worth seeing within a day’s 
journey from the coast. Yes, I know Dinan well. Strange 
to think that I may have passed you in the street there. 
Do you sketch, by the way?” 

“A little.” 

“Ah, then, perhaps you are one of the young ladies I 
have seen sitting at street corners or under archways doing 
fearful and wonderful things with a box of moist colors and 
a drawing board.” 

“The young ladies who sit about the streets are tour- 
ists,” said Isola, with a look of disgust. 

“I understand. The resident ladies would no more do 
such things than they would sit upon the pavement and 
make pictures of salmon or men-of-war in colored chalks, 
like our metropolitan artists.” 

“I think I hear a carriage,” said Isola, putting down her 
cup and saucer, and looking at her jacket, which Mrs. Mayne 
was holding before the fire. 

“Yes, that is the carriage,” answered Lostwithiel, open- 
ing the glass door. “What a night! The rain is just as 
bad as it was when I brought you indoors.” 


i8 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER . 


“If you will accept the use of a shawl, ma'am, it would 
be safer than putting on this damp jacket.” 

“Yes, Mayne, get your shawl. Mrs. Disney will wear it, 
I know.” 

The housekeeper bustled out, and Lostwithiel and his 
guest were alone, looking at each other somewhat help- 
lessly as they stood far apart, she in the glow of the hearth, 
he in the darkness near the door, and feeling that every 
available subject of conversation had been exhausted. 
Their embarrassment was increased when Dalton and a 
footman came in with two great lamps and flooded the 
room with light. 

“I hardly know how to thank you for having taken so 
much trouble about me,” Isola faltered presently, under 
that necessity to say something which is one of the marks 
of shyness. 

“There has been no trouble. I only hope I got you out 
of that pelting rain in time to save you from any evil con- 
sequences. Strange that our acquaintance should begin in 
such an accidental manner. I shall be glad to know more 
of Major Disney when he comes home, and in the mean- 
time I hope I shall have the pleasure of meeting you 
sometimes. No doubt you know everybody in the neigh- 
borhood, so we can hardly help running against each other 
somewhere.” 

Isola smiled faintly, thinking that the chances of any 
such meeting were of the slightest; but she did not gainsay 
him. He wanted to say something courteous, no doubt, 
and had gone into no nice 'question of probabilities before 
he spoke. She had heard him described by a good many 
people, who had hinted darkly at his shortcomings, but had 
all agreed as to his politeness and persuasive powers. 

“A man who would talk over Satan himself,” said the 
village lawyer. 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


19 


Mrs. Mayne reappeared with a comfortable shepherd’s 
plaid shawl, which she wrapped carefully about Mrs. Dis- 
ney in a pleasant, motherly fashion. The rain had all been 
shaken off the little felt hat, which had no feathers or frip- 
pery to spoil. People who live in the west of England 
make their account with wet weather. 

Lord Lostwithiel handed his guest into the carriage, and 
stood bareheaded in the rain to wish her good-by before he 
shut the door. 

“I shall be very anxious to know that you have escaped 
cold,” he said at the last moment. “I hope you won’t 
think me a nuisance if I call to-morrow to inquire.” 

He shut the door quickly, and the brougham drove off 
before she could answer. She was alone in the darkness in 
the snug, warm little carriage. There was a clock ticking 
beside her, a sound that startled her in the darkness. 
There was a basket hanging in front of her, and an odor of 
cigars and Russia leather. There was a black bear rug, 
lined with white fleeciness, which almost filled the carriage. 
She had never sat in such a carriage. How different from 
the moldy old brougham in which she occasionally went to 
dinner parties — a capacious vehicle with a bow window like 
a seaside parlor. 

She leaned back in a corner of the little carriage, wrapped 
in the soft warm rug, wondering at her strange adventure. 
She had penetrated that mysterious house on Black-fir Hill, 
and she had made the acquaintance of Lord Lostwithiel. 
How much she would have to tell Martin in her next letter. 
She wrote to him every week — a long, loving letter, closely 
written on thin paper, pouring out all her fancies and feel- 
ings to the husband she loved with all her heart. 

She sighed as her thoughts recurred to the letter received 
to-day. Six months or perhaps even a year before he was 
to come back to her. Yet the letter had not been without 


20 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER . 


hopefulness. He had the prospect of getting his next step 
before that year was over, and then his coming home would 
be a final return. He would be able to retire, and he 
would buy some land — a hundred acres or so — and breed 
horses — one of his youthful dreams — and do a little build- 
ing, perhaps, to enlarge and beautify the Angler’s Rest, and 
his Isola should have a pair of ponies and a good saddle 
horse. He looked forward to a life of unalloyed happiness. 


CHAPTER II. 

“like a child that never knew but love.’ 

Next morning was bright and clear, a morning so soft 
and balmy that the month might have been mistaken for 
September. Isola ran down to the garden in her neat little 
morning frock and linen collar, and ran about among the 
shrubs and late autumn flowers in a much gayer mood than 
that of yesterday. She loved her garden — small and 
modest as it was in comparison with the grounds and gar- 
dens of her county neighbors — and on a morning like this 
it was rapture to her to run from flower to flower, and from 
shrub to shrub, with her great garden scissors in her hand, 
and her garden basket hanging over her arm, clipping a 
withered leaf or a fading flower every here and there, or 
plucking up those little groundsel plants which seem the 
perpetual expression of the earth’s fertility. 

Alas! those pale tea roses, those saffron and flame-colored 
dahlias, meant the last scrap of summer’s plenteous feast. 
Soon winter and barrenness would spread over the poor little 
garden; but even in the chill, dark heart of midwinter those 
graceful conifers and shining laurels, the vermilion of the 
holly bushes, the scarlet of the hawthorn berries would give 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


It 


beauty to the scene; and then would come the return of 
Persephone with her hands full of gold, the abundant gold 
of crocus and daffodil, jonquil and pale primrose, the rain 
of yellow blossoms which heralds the spring. 

Half a year did not seem such an appalling interval — 
nay, even the thought of a year of waiting did not scare her 
so much this morning in the sunlight and fresh, clear air as 
yesterday in the gray, dim rain. What an improvement 
Martin would find in the garden, should he return before 
the end of the summer. How tall those Irish yews had 
grown by the gate yonder, a pair of dark green obelisks 
keeping stately guard over the modest wooden gate; and 
the escalonia hedge that screened the kitchen garden was 
two feet higher since the spring. How the juniper at the 
corner of the grass plot had shot up and thickened ! Arbu- 
tus, laurel, ribes, everything had been growing as shrubs 
only grow in the south and southwest of England. What a 
darling garden it was, and how full of pleasure her life 
would be by and by, when Martin was able to settle down 
and buy land, and give her a little herd of Jersey cows. 
She had always envied the farmers’ wives in that fertile 
valley of the Ranee, where her childhood had been passed. 
And how delightful to have her own cows and her own 
farmyard, and a pony carriage to drive up and down the 
hilly Cornish lanes and into the narrow little street of 
Fowey, and to ride her own horse by her husband’s side for 
long exploring rambles among those wild hills toward 
Mevagissey. 

She had only to wait patiently for a year or less, and that 
bright life might be hers. She had no frivolous vanities, no 
craving for dissipations and fine clothes, no fatal thirst for 
“smartness.” Her ideas were essentially modest. She 
had never envied her sister, who had married a rich stock- 
broker, and whose brand new red brick house in Hans 


22 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


Place towered above surrounding Chelsea as much as her 
diamonds eclipsed the jewels of other middle-class matrons 
at the festal gatherings of South Kensington and Bayswater. 
Gwendolen had married for wealth. Isola had married for 
love. She had given her gir’ish affection to a man who was 
nearly twenty years her senior, her heart going out to him 
innocently almost at the beginning of their acquaintance, 
first because he was a soldier, and in her mind a hero, and 
secondly because he was kinder to her than anybody else 
had ever been. 

He was her first admirer. That delicate loveliness, as of 
some woodland flower, which distinguished Isola from the 
herd of women, had been still in embryo when Major Dis- 
ney spent a summer holiday between Dinard and Dinan. 
She had scarcely ranked as a pretty girl two years ago. 
The slight figure was denounced as scraggy, the pale face 
was voted sickly, and the delicate features were spoken of 
as insignificant. Gwendolen’s big, fair face, with its healthy 
roses and lilies, her bright hair, and well-developed figure 
had completely overshadowed the younger sister. Martin 
Disney was the first man upon whom Isola’ s low-toned 
beauty had any power. He was drawn to her from the 
very beginning. She listened so prettily, with such a 
bewitching modesty and almost tremulous pleasure, when 
he talked to her, as they sat side by side in the little club at 
Dinard, watching Gwendolen playing tennis, superb in 
striped flannel of delicate pink and cream color. He could 
hardly believe that those two were sisters. Isola so slim 
and fragile, of such an ethereal prettiness, owing so little to 
coloring, and nothing to redundancy of form. 

He was told that Miss Manwaring was engaged to one of 
the richest men in London. That, of course, was a gossip’s 
fable, but it was an established fact that Mr. Hazelrigg had 
made a considerable fortune in South American railways, 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER . 23 

water works, and other public improvements, and could 
afford to make a liberal settlement. 

He showed no indisposition to be generous to his hand- 
some sweetheart. He settled seven hundred a year upon 
her, and told her that she could spend as much of that 
income as she liked upon toilet and pocket money, and that 
he would invest her surplus advantageously for her. 

The two sisters were married on the same day to hus- 
bands who were their seniors by nearly a score of years in 
one instance, by more than a score in the other. Daniel 
Hazelrigg was well on toward his jubilee birthday when he 
led Miss Manwaring to the altar; but he was a fine-looking 
man, straight and tall, like his bride, with a ruddy com- 
plexion and iron-gray mustache, and an air and bearing 
that savored rather of the mess room than the City. He had 
been on the Stock Exchange ever since he came of age; 
but he had made it the study of his life not to look City or 
to talk City. Nothing could tempt him to expatiate upon 
the money market outside his office. He would talk sport, 
travel, politics — even literature, of which he knew very 
little — but not stocks and shares, Panama Canal, or Phila- 
delphia and Reading, Mexican Street Railways, or Patago- 
nian Building Society. 

Isola read her sister’s glowing descriptions of dinners and 
routs, gowns by Worth or Cresser, suppers for two hundred 
people at a guinea a head from Gunter, wagon loads of cut 
roses from Cheshunt or Cheam, and felt no thrill of long- 
ing, no pang of envy. Life in the Angler’s Nest might be 
dull; but it was only dull because Martin was away. She 
would have felt more solitary in Hans Place, had she 
accepted Gwendolen’s invitation to spend her Christmas 
there, than she would feel in the cottage by the river, even 
with no better company than Tabitha, Shah, and Tim. 
She was essentially shy and retiring. Her girlhood had 


24 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


been spent in a very narrow world, among people whom she 
seemed to have known all her life; for while Gwendolen, 
who was six years older, and had been “out” for four years 
before she married, joined in all the little gayeties of the 
place, and was always making new acquaintances, Isola, who 
was not “out,” spent her days for the most part in a dreamy 
old, half-neglected garden on the slope of the hill that looks 
across the Ranee toward the unseen sea. The view from 
that garden was one of the finest in western France; and it 
was Isola’ s delight to sit in a little berceau at the end of a 
terrace walk, with her books and workbasket and drawing 
board, all through the long, tranquil summer day, in a 
silence only broken by the sound of wheels and horses’ feet 
on the viaduct and bridge three or four hundred feet below, 
or the muffled music of the organ in the convent chapel. 

Tim, the fox terrier, and Shah, the Persian cat, were both 
on the lawn with their mistress this morning. They were 
not friendly toward each other, but preserved an armed 
neutrality. Tim chased every stray strange cat with a fury 
that threatened annihilation; and he always looked as if he 
would like to give chase to Shah when that dignified piece 
of fluff moved slowly across the lawn before him with 
uplifted tail that seemed to wave defiance; but he knew 
that any attack upon that valued personage would entail 
punishment and disgrace. Isola loved both these animals 
— the cat a wedding present from an old Breton lady in 
Dinan, the terrier her husband’s parting legacy. “Take 
care of Tim,” he had said the day they parted on board 
the P. & O. at Venice. 

The dog loved his mistress vehemently and obtrusively, 
leaping into her lap at the slightest sign of indulgence in 
her eye. The cat suffered himself to be adored, receiving 
all attentions with a sleepy complacency. 


ALL ALONG TILE RIVER . 


25 


It was only half-past eight, and the world was looking its 
freshest. There was an opening in the shrubbery that let 
in a view of the river, and just in front of this opening there 
was a rustic bench on which Major Disney liked to smoke 
his after-breakfast or after-dinner cigar. The garden con- 
tained something less than two acres, but it was an old gar- 
den, and there were some good old trees, which must have 
shaded hoops and powder, and pigtails and knee breeches. 
Major Disney had done a good deal in the way of planting 
wherever there was room for improvement, and he had 
secured to himself an elderly gardener of exceptional indus- 
try, who worked in the garden as if he loved it. Tabitha, 
again, was one of those wonderful women who knew all 
about everything except books; and she too loved the 
garden, and helped at weeding and watering at seasons of 
pressure. Thus it had come to pass that these two acres of 
velvet lawn and flower bed, shrubbery and trim, old- 
fashioned garden had acquired a reputation in Trelasco, 
and people frequently complimented Mrs. Disney about 
her garden. 

She was proud of their praises, remembering the strag- 
gling rosebushes and lavender, and unkempt flower beds, 
and overgrown cabbages, and loose, shingly paths in that old 
garden at Dinan, which she had loved despite its neglected 
condition. Her house at Trelasco was just as superior to 
the house at Dinan as garden was to garden. She often 
thought of her old home, the shabby square house with 
walls and shutters of dazzling white, shining brown floors, 
and worn-out furniture of the Empire period — furniture 
which had been shabby and out of repair when Colonel 
Manwaring took the house furnished, intending to spend a 
week or two in retirement at Dinan, with his wife and her 
firstborn, a chubby little girl of five. They had lost a 
promising boy of a year old, and the colonel, having no 


2 6 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


reason for living anywhere in particular, and very little to 
live upon, thought that residence in a foreign country 
would improve his wife’s health and spirits. He had been 
told that Dinan was picturesque and cheap; and he had 
put himself and his family on board the St. Malo steamer 
and had gone out like an emigrant to push his fortunes in a 
strange land. He had even an idea that he might get 
“something to do” in Dinan — a secretaryship of a club, an 
agency, or managerial post of some kind, never having cul- 
tivated the art of self-examination so far as to discover that 
he must have proved utterly incapable had any such occa- 
sion presented itself. 

The occasion never did present itself. The one English 
club existent at Dinan in those days was amply provided 
with the secretarial element. There was nothing in Dinan 
for an Englishman to manage, no English agency re- 
quired. 

Colonel Manwaring settled down into a kind of somnolent 
submission to obscure fortunes. He liked the old town, 
and he liked the climate. He liked the cooking, and he 
liked being out of the way of all the people he knew, and 
whose vicinity would have obliged him to live up to a 
certain conventional level. He liked to get his English 
newspapers upon French soil, and it irked him not that they 
were thirty-six hours old. He liked to bask in the sunshine 
on the terrace above the Ranee, or in the open places of the 
town. He liked talking of the possibilities of an impending 
war, in very dubious French, with the French officers, 
whose acquaintance he made at club or caf£. He had sold 
his commission and sunk the proceeds of the sale upon an 
annuity. He had a little income of his own, and his wife 
had a little money from a maiden aunt, and these resources 
just enabled him to live with a certain unpretending com- 
fort. He had a good Breton cook, and an old Scotch valet 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


27 


and butler, who would have gone through fire and water for 
his master. Mrs. Manwaring was a thoroughly negative 
character, placid as summer seas, sympathetic, and helpless. 
She let Macgregor and Antoinette manage the house for 
her, do all the marketing, pay all the bills, and work the 
whole machinery of her domestic life. She rejoiced in 
having a good-tempered husband and obedient daughters. 
She had no boys to put her in a fever of anxiety lest they 
should be making surreptitious ascents in balloons or stak- 
ing their little all upon zero at the “Etablissement” at 
Dinard. In summer she sat all day in one particular south 
window, knitting stockings for the colonel and reading the 
English papers. In winter she occupied herself in the same 
manner by the chimney corner. She devoted one day in 
the week to writing long letters to distant relatives. Once 
a day, weather permitting, she took a gentle constitutional 
walk upon the terrace above the Ranee with one of her 
daughters. Needless to say that in this life of harmless 
apathy she had grown very stout, and that she had forgotten 
almost every accomplishment of her girlhood. 

From the placid monotony of life in Brittany to the placid 
monotony of life in Cornwall was not a startling transition ; 
yet when she married Martin Disney, and bade her com- 
monplace father and her apathetic mother good-by, Isola 
felt as if she had escaped from stagnation into a fresh and 
vigorous atmosphere. Disney’s character made all the 
difference. He was every inch a soldier, a keen politician, 
a man who had seen many countries and read many books, 
clear-brained, strong-willed, energetic, self-reliant. She 
felt what it was to belong to somebody who was capable of 
taking care of her. She trusted him implicitly; and she 
loved him with as deep a love as a girl of nineteen is capa- 
ble of feeling for any lover. It may be that the capacity 
for deep feeling is but half developed at that age, and in 


28 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


that one fact may be the key to many domestic mysteries 
— mysteries of unions which begin in all the gladness and 
warmth of responsive affection, and which, a few years 
later, pass into a frozen region of indifference or are 
wrecked on sunken rocks of guilty passion. Certain it was 
that Isola Manwaring gave her hand to this grave middle- 
aged soldier in all the innocence of a first love; and the 
love with which he rewarded her confidence, the earnest, 
watchful love of a man of mature years, was enough for her 
happiness. That honeymoon time, that summer of installa- 
tion in the Cornish cottage, and then the leisurely journey 
to Venice in the waning brilliance of a southern October, 
seemed like one long happy dream, as she looked back 
upon it now after a year of solitude. 

The doctor had decided that, in the delicate health in 
which she found herself at the end of that summer, it would 
be dangerous for her to accompany her husband to India, 
more especially as a campaign in Burmah meant roughing 
it, and she would in all probability have been separated 
from him in the East, so they bade each other a sad good-by 
at Venice, and Isola traveled quickly homeward, all possi- 
ble comfort having been secured for her on the way by her 
husband’s forethought. It had been a long, sad, sleepy 
journey, through a rain-blurred landscape, and she was glad 
when the evening of the fourth day brought her to the snug 
little dining room in the Angler’s Rest, where Tabitha was 
waiting for her with a cheerful fire and the amber-shaded 
reading lamp, and the most delightful little composite meal 
of chicken and tongue, and tart, and cream, and tea. It 
was pleasant to be among familiar things after that long 
journey in stuffy ladies’ carriages, with elderly invalids, 
whose chief talk was of their ailments — pleasant to see the 
Shah’s solemn sea-green eyes staring at her, and to have to 
repulse the demonstrative attentions of Tim, who leaped 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


29 


upon her lap and licked her face vehemently every time he 
caught her off her guard. 

She was ill and broken down after her journey and that 
sad parting, and she hid her tears upon Tabitha’s comfort- 
able arm. 

“It will be at least a year before he comes back,” she 
sobbed. “How can I live without him all that dreary 
time?” 

Tabitha thought it was very hard upon the girl-wife, but 
affected to make light of it. “Lor* bless you, ma’am,” she 
said, “a year looks a long time, but it isn’t much when you 
come to grapple with it. There’ll be such a lot for you to 
do. There’ll be the garden. We ought to make ever so 
many improvements next spring and summer against the 
master comes home. And there’s your piano. You want 
to improve yourself — I’ve heard you say so; and you can 
get up all sorts of new tunes, and won’t the major be 
pleased with you — and then — there’ll be something else to 
occupy your mind before next summer comes.” 

That “something else” which was to have filled Isola’s 
empty life with a new interest ended in disappointment. 
She was very ill at the beginning of the new year, and 
Tabitha nursed her with motherly tenderness long after the 
doctor and the professional nurse had renounced their care 
of her. She regained strength very slowly after that serious 
illness, and it was only in June she was able to take the 
lonely rambles she loved, or row in her little boat upon 
the river. 

Tabitha was a servant in a thousand, faithful and 
devoted, clever, active, and industrious. She had been 
maid to Martin Disney’s mother for nearly fifteen years, 
had nursed her mistress through a long and weary illness, 
and had closed her eyes in death. Martin parted with that 
faithful servant with reluctance after the breaking up of his 


30 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


mother’s household, and he told her if he should ever marry 
and have a house of his own — a very remote contingency — 
she must be his housekeeper. Love and marriage came 
upon him before the end of the year, as a delightful sur- 
prise. He bought the Angler’s Rest, and he engaged 
Tabitha for the rest of her life, at wages which, beginning 
at a liberal figure, were to rise a pound every Christmas. 

“As if I cared about wages, Mr. Martin!’’ exclaimed 
Tabitha. “I’d just as soon come to you for nothing. I’ve 
got more clothes than will last my time, I’ll be bound. 
You’d only have to find me in shoe leather.” 

She had never got out of the way of calling her master by 
the name by which she had first known him, when his father 
and elder brother were both at home, in the old family 
house at Fowey. In all moments of forgetfulness he was 
still “Mr. Martin.” 

And now, in this bright November morning, Tabitha 
came out to say that breakfast was waiting for her young 
mistress, and mistress and maid went in together to the 
cozy dining room, where the small round table near the 
window was arranged as only Tabitha could arrange a table 
— with autumn flowers, and spotless damask, and a new-laid 
egg, and a dish of honey, and some dainty little rolls of 
Tabitha’s own making, nestling in a napkin, a breakfast for 
a princess in a fairy tale. 

There was only one other servant in the little household 
— a bouncing, rosy-cheeked Cornish girl, who was very 
industrious under Tabitha’s eye, and very idle when she 
was out of that faithful housekeeper’s ken. Tabitha 
cooked and took care of everything, and for the most part 
waited upon her mistress in this time of widowhood, 
although Sarah was supposed to be parlor maid. 

Tabitha poured out the tea and buttered a roll, while 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER . 


31 


Isola leaned back in the bamboo chair and played with the 
Shah. 

“I never knew him do such a thing before,” said Tabitha, 
in continuation of a theme which had been fully discussed 
last night. 

“Oh, it was very kind and polite; but it was not such a 
tremendous thing, after all,” answered Isola, still occupied 
with the Persian. “He could hardly stand by and see one 
drowned. You have no idea what the rain was like.” 

“But to send you home in his own carriage.” 

“There was nothing else for him to do — except send me 
home in the gardener’s cart. He could not have turned 
out a dog in such weather.” 

“It’s a thing that never happened before, and it just 
shows what a respect he must have for the Disneys. You 
don’t know how stand-offish he is with all the people about 
here — how he keeps himself to himself. Not a bit like his 
father and mother. They used to entertain all the neigh- 
borhood, and they went everywhere, as affable as you like. 
He has taken care to show people that he doesn’t want their 
company. They say he has led a very queer kind of life at 
home and abroad — never settling down anywhere, here 
to-day and gone to-morrow, roving about with his yacht. 
I don’t believe any good ever comes of a young gentleman 
like that having a yacht. It would be ever so much better 
for him to live at The Mount and keep a pack of harriers.” 

“Why should a yacht be bad?” asked Isola, lazily begin- 
ning her breakfast, Tabitha standing by the table all the 
time, ready for conversation. 

“Oh, I don’t know. It gives a young man too much 
liberty,” answered Tabitha, shaking her head with a mean- 
ing air, as if with a knowledge of dark things in connection 
with yachts. “He can keep just what company he likes 
on board— gentlemen or ladies. He can gamble— or drink 


3 2 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


— as much as he likes. There’s nobody to check him. 
Sundays and week days, night and day, are all alike to him.” 

“Lord Lostwithiel is not particularly young,” said Isola 
musingly, not paying much attention to this homily on 
yachts. “He must be thirty, I think.” 

“Thirty-two last birthday. He ought to marry and settle 
down. They say he’s very clever, and that he’s bound to 
make a figure in politics some of these odd days.” 

Isola looked at the clock on the chimney-piece — a gilt 
horseshoe with onyx nails, one of her wedding presents. 
It was early yet — only half-past nine. Lord Lostwithiel 
had talked about calling to inquire after her health. She 
felt overpowered with shyness at the thought of seeing him 
again, alone — with no stately Mrs. Mayne to take the edge 
off a tete-cL-tete. Anything to escape such an ordeal! There 
was her boat — that boat of which she was perfect mistress, 
and in which she went for long, dawdling expeditions toward 
Fowey or Lostwithiel with only Tim for her companion — 
Tim, who was the best of company, in almost perpetual 
circulation between stem and stern, balancing himself in 
perilous places every now and then, to bark furiously at 
imaginary foes in slowly passing fishermen’s boats. 

“Have you any fancy about lunch, ma’am?” asked 
Tabitha, lingering with feather brush in hand over a side 
table, on which workbasket, books, writing case, and 
flower vases were arranged with tasteful neatness by those 
skillful hands. 

“No, you dear old Tabbie; you know that anything will 
do for me. Bread and jam, if you like, and some of your 
clotted cream. Won’t it be nice when we have our very 
own dairy, and our very own cows, who will know us and 
be fond of us, like Tim and the Shah?” 

She put on her hat and jacket, and went out into the 
garden again, singing “La Lettre de Perichole” as she 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


33 


went. It was a capital idea to take refuge in her boat. If 
his lordship should call — which was doubtful, since he 
might be one of that numerous race of people whose days 
are made up of unfulfilled intentions and promises never 
realized — if he should call, she would be far away when he 
came. He would make his inquiry, leave his card, which 
would look nice in the old Indian bowl on the hall table. 
Such cards have a power of flotation unknown to other 
pasteboard: they are always at the top. 

Isola went to the little boathouse on the edge of the lawn, 
Tim following her. She pushed the light skiff down the 
slope into the water, and in a few minutes more her sculls 
were in the rowlocks, and she was moving slowly up the 
river, between autumnal woods, in a silence broken only by 
the dip of the sculls and the little rippling sound as the 
water dropped away from them. A good deal of her life 
was spent like this, moving slowly up the river through that 
deep silence of the woodland shores. The river was as 
beautiful as the Dart almost, but lonelier and more silent. 
It was Martin Disney’s river — the river whose ripples had 
soothed his mother’s dying ears — the last of all earthly 
sounds that had been heard in the stillness of the death 
chamber. 

In that tranquil atmosphere Isola used to dream of her 
absent husband and of that mystical world of the East, 
which seemed made up of dreams — the world of Brahma 
and Buddha, of jewel-bedecked rajahs and palace tombs 
— world of beauty and of terror, of tropical forests, tigers, 
orchids, serpents, elephants, thugs. 

She dreamed her dream of that strange world in fear and 
trembling, conjuring up scenes of horror — tiger hunts, 
snakes hidden in the corner of a tent, battle, fever, fire, 
mutiny. Her morbid imagination pictured all possible and 
impossible danger for the man she loved. And then she 


34 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


thought of his home-coming — his return — for good, for 
good — for all the span of their joint lives; and she longed 
for that return with the sickness of hope deferred. 

She would go back to the Angler’s Rest sometimes after 
one of these dreamy days upon the river, and would pace 
about the house or the garden, planning things for her 
husband’s return, as if he were due next day. She would 
wheel his own particular chair to the drawing-room fire- 
place, and look at it, and arrange the fall of the curtains 
before the old-fashioned bow window, and change the posi- 
tion of the lamp, and alter the books on the shelves, and 
do this and that with an eye to effect, anxious to discover 
how the room might be made prettiest, coziest, most lovable 
and homelike — for him, for him, for him! 

And now she had to resign herself to a year’s delay, 
perhaps. Yes, he had said it might be a year. All that 
bright picture of union and content, which had seemed so 
vivid and so near, had now grown dim and pale. It had 
melted into a shadowy distance. To a girl who has but just 
passed her twentieth birthday a year of waiting and delay 
seems an eternity. 

“I won’t think of him,” she said to herself, plunging her 
sculls fiercely into the rippling water. The tide was run- 
ning down, and it was strong enough to have carried her 
little boat out to sea like an autumn leaf swept along the 
current. “I must try to lull my mind to sleep, as if I were 
an enchanted princess, and so bridge over twelve slow, dull 
months of loneliness. I won’t think of you, Martin, my 
good, brave, truest of the true! I’ll occupy my poor, fool- 
ish little mind. I’ll write a novel, perhaps, like old Miss 
Carver at Dinan. Anything in the world — just to keep my 
thoughts from always brooding on one subject.” 

She rowed on steadily, hugging the shore under the 
wooded hillside, where the rich autumn coloring and the 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


35 


clear, cool lights were so full of beauty — a beauty which 
she could feel, with a vague, dim sense which just touched 
the realm of poetry. Perhaps she felt the same sense of 
loss which Keats or Alfred de Musset would have felt in the 
stillness of such a scene — the want of something to people 
the wood and the river — some race of beings loftier than 
fishermen and peasants; some of those mystic forms which the 
poet sees amid the shadows of old woods or in the creeks 
and sheltered inlets of a secluded river. 

She thought with a half smile of yesterday’s adventure. 
What importance that foolish Tabitha gave to so simple an 
incident — the merest commonplace courtesy, necessitated 
by circumstances; and only because the person who had 
been commonly courteous was Richard Hulbert, thirteenth 
Baron Lostwithiel. Thirteenth baron! There lay the dis- 
tinction. These Cornish folks worship antique lineage. 
Tabitha would have thought very little of a mushroom 
peer’s civility, although he had sent her mistress home in a 
chariot and four. She was no worshiper of wealth, and she 
turned up her blunt old nose at Mr. Crowther of Glenav- 
eril — the great, new, red-brick mansion which had sprung 
up like a fungus amid the woods only yesterday — because he 
had made his money in trade, albeit his trade had been 
upon a large scale, and altogether genteel and worthy to be 
esteemed — a great cloth factory at Stroud, which was said 
to have clad half the army at one period of modern history. 

Poor, foolish Tabitha! What would she have thought of 
the tea drinking in that lovely old room, mysteriously beau- 
tiful in the light of a wood fire — the playful, uncertain light 
which glorifies everything? What would she have thought 
of those walls of books — richly bound books, books in 
somber brown, big books and little books, from floor to ceil- 
ing? A room which made those poor little oak bookcases 
in the cottage parlor something to blush for. What would 


36 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


Tabitha have thought of his deferential kindness — that tone 
of deepest consideration with which such men treat all 
women, even the old and uncomely? She could hardly 
have helped admiring his good manners, whatever dark 
things she might have been told about his earlier years. 

Why should he not have a yacht? It seemed the fittest 
life for a man without home ties, a man still young and 
with no need to labor at a profession. What better life 
could there be than that free wandering from port to port 
over a romantic sea — and to Isola all seas were alike mys- 
terious and romantic. 

She dwadled away the morning; she sculled against the 
stream for nearly three hours, and then let her boat drift 
down the river to the garden above the towpath. It was 
long past her usual time for luncheon when she moored her 
boat to the little wooden steps, leaving it for Thomas, the 
gardener, to pull up into the boathouse. She had made up 
her mind that if Lostwithiel troubled himself to make any 
inquiry about her health he would call in the morning. 

She had guessed rightly. Tabitha was full of his visit 
and his wondrous condescension. He had called at eleven 
o’clock, on his way to the railway station at Fowey. He 
had called in the most perfect of T carts, with a bright bay 
horse. Tabitha had opened the door to him. He had 
asked quite anxiously about Mrs. Disney’s health. He had 
walked round the garden with Tabitha and admired every- 
thing, and had told her that Major Disney had a better 
gardener tjian any he had at The Mount, after which he had 
left her charmed at his amiability. And so this little 
episode in Isola’s life came to a pleasant end, leaving no 
record but his lordship’s card, lying like a jewel on the top 
of less distinguished names in the old Indian bowl. 


ALL ALONG THE RLVER. 


37 


CHAPTER III. 

“what turned the many heads and broke 

THE HEARTS.” 

Isola fancied that her adventure was all over and done 
with after that ceremonious call of inquiry; but in so nar- 
row a world as that of Trelasco it was scarcely possible to 
have seen the last of a man who lived within three miles; 
and she and Lord Lostwithiel met now and again in the 
course of her solitary rambles. The walk into Fowey, fol- 
lowing the old disused railway, was almost her favorite, and 
one which she had occasion to take oftener than any other, 
since Tabitha was a stay-at-home person, and expected her 
young mistress to do all the marketing, so that Isola had 
usually some errand to take her into the narrow street on 
the hillside above the sea. It was at Fowey that she often- 
est met Lostwithiel. His yacht, the Vendetta, was in the 
harbor under repairs, and he went down to look at the work 
daily, and often dawdled upon the deck till dusk, watching 
the carpenters or talking to his captain. They had been 
half over the world together, master and man, and were 
almost as familiar as brothers. The crew were half English 
and half foreign ; and it was a curious mixture of languages 
in which Lostwithiel talked to them. They were most of 
them old hands on board the Vendetta, and would have 
stood by the owner of the craft if he had wanted to sail her 
up the Phlegethon. 

She was a schooner of eighty tons, built for speed, and 
with a rakish rig. She had cost, with her fittings, her extra 
silk sails for racing, more money than Lostwithiel cared to 
remember; but he loved her as a man loves his mistress, 
and if she were costly and exacting she was no worse than 
other mistresses, and she was true as steel, which they are 


3 » 


ALL ALONG THE RIVET. 


not always; and so he felt that he had money’s worth in 
her. He showed her to Isola one evening from the prom- 
ontory above the harbor, where she met him in the autumn 
sundown. Her work at the butcher’s and the grocer’s 
being done, she had gone up to that airy height by Point 
Neptune to refresh herself with a long look seaward before 
she went back to her home in the valley. Lostwithiel took 
her away from the Point, and made her look down into the 
harbor. 

“Isn’t she a beauty?” he asked, pointing below. 

Her inexperienced eyes roamed about among the boats, 
colliers, fishing boats, half a dozen yachts of different 
tonnage. 

“Which is yours?” she asked. 

“Which? Why, there is only one decent boat in the 
harbor. The schooner.” 

She saw which boat he meant by the direction in which 
he flourished his walking stick, but was not learned in dis- 
tinctions of rig. The Vendetta , being under repair, did not 
seem to her especially lovely. 

“Have you pretty cabins?” she asked childishly. 

“Oh, yes, they’re pretty enough; but that’s not the ques- 
tion. Look at her lines. She skims over the water like a 
gull. Ladies seem to think only what a boat looks like 
inside. I believe my boat is rather exceptional from a 
lady’s point of view. Will you come on board and have a 
look at her?” 

“Thanks, no; I couldn’t possibly. It will be dark 
before I get home as it is.” 

“But it wouldn’t take you a quarter of an hour, and we 
could row you up the river in no time — ever so much faster 
than you could walk.” 

Isola looked frightened at the very idea. 

“Not for the world,” she said. “Tabitha would think 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


39 


I had gone mad. She would begin to fancy that I could 
never go out without overstaying the daylight and troubling 
you to send me home.” 

“Ah, but it is so long since you were last belated,” he 
said in his low, caressing voice, with a tone that was new 
to her and different from all other voices, “ages and ages 
ago — half a lifetime. There could be no harm in being 
just a little late this mild evening, and I would row you 
home — I myself, under the new moon. Look at her swing- 
ing up in the gray blue there above Polruan. She looks 
like a fairy boat, anchored in the sky by that star hanging a 
fathom below her keel. I look at her, and wish' — wish — 
wish ! ” 

He looked up, pale in the twilight, with dark, deep-set 
eyes, of which it was never easy to read the expression. 
Perhaps that inscrutable look made those sunken and by 
no means brilliant eyes more interesting than some much 
handsomer eyes — interesting with the deep interest that 
belongs to the unknowable. 

“Good-night,” said Isola. “I’m afraid that I shall be 
very late. ” 

“Good-night. You would be earlier if you would trust 
to the boat.” 

He held out his hand, and she gave him hers hesitat- 
ingly, for the first time in their acquaintance. It was after 
this parting in the wintry sundown that she first began to 
look troubled at meeting him. 

The troubled feeling grew upon her somehow. In a life 
so lonely and uneventful trifles assume undue importance. 
She tried to avoid him, and on her journeys to Fowey she 
finished her business in the village street and turned home- 
ward without having climbed the promontory by that rugged 
walk she loved so well. It needed some self-denial to 
forego that keen pleasure of standing on the windy height 


40 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


and gazing across the western sea toward Ushant and her 
native province; but she knew that Lord Lostwithiel spent 
a good deal of his time lounging on the heights above the 
harbor, and she did not want to meet him again. 

Although she lived her quiet life in the shortening days 
for nearly a month without meeting him, she was not 
allowed to forget his existence. Wherever she went people 
talked about him and speculated about him. Every detail 
of his existence made matter for discussion ; his yacht, his 
political opinions, his talents, his income, his matrimonial 
prospects, the likelihood or unlikelihood of his settling 
down permanently at The Mount, and taking the harriers, 
which were likely to be without a master within a measur- 
able distance of time. There was so little to talk about in 
Trelasco and those scattered hamlets between Fowey and 
Lostwithiel. 

Isola found herself joining in the talk at afternoon tea 
parties, those haphazard droppings in of charitable ladies 
who had been their rounds among the cottagers and came 
back to the atmosphere of gentility, worn out by long stories 
of woes and ailments, sore legs and rheumatic joints, and 
were very glad to discuss a local nobleman over a cup of 
delicately flavored Indian tea in the glow of a flower-scented 
drawing room. 

Among other houses Mrs. Disney visited Glenaveril, 
Mr. Crowther’s great, red-brick mansion, with its pepper- 
box turrets and Jacobean windows, after the manner of 
Burleigh House by Stamford town. 

Here lived in wealth and state quite the most important 
family within a mile of Trelasco, the Vansittart Crowthers, 
erst of Pilbury Mills near Stroud, now as much county as a 
family can make itself after its head has passed his fortieth 
birthday. Nobody quite knew how Mr. Crowther had come 
to be a Vansittart — unless by the easy process of baptism and 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


41 


the complaisance of an aristocratic sponsor; but the 
Crowthers had been known in Stroud for nearly two hun- 
dred years, and had kept their sacks upright, as Mr. 
Crowther called it, all that time. 

Fortune had favored this last of the Crowthers, and at 
forty years of age he had found himself rich enough to 
dispose of his business to two younger brothers and a 
brother-in-law, and to convert himself into a landed pro- 
prietor. He bought up all the land that was to be had 
about Trelasco. Cornish people cling to their land like 
limpets to a rock; and it was not easy to acquire the own- 
ership of the soil. In the prosperous past, when land was 
paying nearly four per cent, in other parts of England, 
Cornishmen were content to hold estates that only yielded 
two per cent.; but the days of decay had come when 
Mr. Crowther entered the market, and he was able to buy 
out more than one gentleman of ancient lineage. 

When he had secured his land he sent to Plymouth for 
an architect, and he so harried that architect, and so tam- 
pered with his drawings, that the result of much labor and 
outlay was that monstrosity in red brick with stone dress- 
ings, known in the neighborhood as Glenaveril. Mr. 
Crowther’s eldest daughter was deep in Lord Lytton’s 
newly published poem when the house was being finished, 
and had imposed that euphonious name upon her father — 
Glenaveril. The house really was in a glen, or at least in a 
wooded valley, and Glenaveril seemed to suit it to perfec- 
tion; and so the romantic name of a romantic poem was 
cut in massive Gothic letters on the granite pillars of 
Vansittart Crowther’s gate, beneath a shield which exhib- 
ited the coat of arms made and provided by the Herald’s 
College. 

Mrs. Vansittart Crowther was at home on Thursday 
afternoons, when the choicest Indian tea and the thickest 


42 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER . 


cream, coffee as in Paris, and the daintiest cakes and muf- 
fins which a professed cook could provide furnished the 
zest to conversation ; for it could scarcely be said that the 
conversation gave a zest to those creature comforts. It 
would be perhaps nearer the mark to say that Mrs. Crowther 
was supposed to sit in the drawing room on these occasions 
while the two Miss Crowthers were at home. The mistress 
of Glenaveril was not an aspiring woman; and in her heart 
of hearts she preferred Gloucestershire to Cornwall, and 
the stuccoed villa on the Cheltenham road, with its acre 
and a half of tennis lawn and flower beds, open to the 
blazing sun, and powdered with the summer dust, to Glenav- 
eril, with its solemn belt of woodlands, and its too spacious 
grandeur. She was not vulgar or illiterate. She never 
misplaced an aspirate. She had learned to play the piano 
and to talk French at the politest of young ladies’ schools 
at Cheltenham. She never dressed outrageously or 
behaved rudely. She had neither red hands nor splay feet. 
She was in all things blameless; and yet Belinda and Alicia, 
her daughters, were ashamed of her, and did their utmost 
to keep her, and her tastes, and her opinions in the back- 
ground. She had no style. She was not “smart.” She 
seemed incapable of grasping the ideas or understanding 
the ways of smart people; or at least her daughters 
thought so. 

“Your mother is one of the best women I know,” said 
the curate to Alicia, being on the most confidential terms 
with both sisters, “and yet you and Miss Crowther are 
always trying to edit her.” 

“Father wants a great deal more editing than mother,” 
said Belinda, “but there’s no use in talking to him. He is 
incased in the armor of self-esteem. It made my blood run 
cold to see him taking Lord Lostwithiel over the grounds 
and stables the other day — praising everything, and point- 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


43 


ing out this and that — and even saying how much things 
had cost!” 

“I dare say it was vulgar,” agreed the curate, “but it’s 
human nature. I’ve seen a duke behave in pretty much 
the same way. Children are always proud of their new 
toys, and ‘men are but children of a larger growth,’ don’t 
you know; and you’ll find there’s a family resemblance in 
humanity which is stronger than training.” 

‘‘Lord Lostwithiel would never behave in that kind of 
way — boring people about his stables.” 

‘‘Lord Lostwithiel doesn’t care about stables — he would 
bore you about his yacht, I dare say.” 

‘‘No, he never talks of himself or his own affairs. That 
is just the charm of his manner. He makes us all believe 
that he is thinking about us; and yet I dare say he forgets 
us directly he is outside the gate.” 

“I’m sure he does,” replied Mr. Colfox, the curate. 
‘‘There isn’t a more selfish man living than Lostwithiel.” 

The fair Belinda looked at him angrily. There are 
assertions which young ladies make on purpose to have 
them controverted. 

Mrs. Disney hated the great, red-brick porch, with its 
vaulted roof and monstrous iron lantern, and the bell which 
made such a clamor, as if it meant fire, or at least dinner, 
when she touched the hanging brass handle. She hated to 
find herself face to face with a tall footman, who hardly 
condescended to say whether his mistress were at home or 
not, but just preceded her languidly along the broad corri- 
dor, where the carpet was so thick that it felt like turf, and 
flung open the drawing-room door with an air, and pro- 
nounced her name into empty space, so remote were the 
half-dozen ladies at the other end of the room, clustered 
round Belinda’s tea table, and fed with cake by Alicia, 
while Mrs. Crowther sat in the window a little way off, with 


44 


ALL ALONG THE RLVER. 


her basket of woolwork at her side, and her fat, somnolent 
pug lying at her feet. To Isola it was an ordeal to have to 
walk the length of the drawing room, navigating her course 
amid an archipelago of expensive things — Florentine tables, 
portfolios of engravings, Louis Seize jardinieres, easels sup- 
porting the last expensive etching from Goupil’s — to the 
window where Mrs. Crowther waited to receive her, rising 
with her lapful of wools, to shake hands with simple friend- 
liness and without a vestige of style. Belinda shook hands 
on a level with the tip of her sharp, retroussd nose,, and 
twirled the silken train of her tea gown with the serpentine 
grace of Sarah Bernhardt — she prided herself on those 
serpentine movements and languid graces which belong to 
the Greco-Belgravian period — while Alicia held herself like 
a ramrod, and took her stand upon being nothing if not 
sporting. Her olive cloth gown and straight starched 
collar, her neat double-soled boots, and cloth gaiters were 
a standing reproach to Belinda’s silken slovenliness and 
embroidered slippers, always dropping off her restless feet, 
and being chased surreptitiously among her lace and pongee 
frillings. Poor Mrs. Crowther disliked the Guards’ collar, 
which she felt was writing premature wrinkles upon her 
younger girl’s throat, but she positively loathed the loose 
elegance of the Indian silk tea gown, with its wide Oriental 
sleeves, exhibiting naked arms to the broad daylight. 
That sloppy raiment made a discord in the subdued har- 
mony of the visitors’ tailor-made gowns — well worn some 
of them — olive, and gray, and indigo, and russet, and 
Mrs. Crowther was tortured by the conviction that her 
elder daughter looked disreputable. This honest matron 
was fond of Isola Disney. In her own simple phraseology 
she had “taken to her,’’ and pressed the girl-wife to come 
every Thursday afternoon. 

“It must be so lonely for you,” she said gently, “with 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER . 


45 


your husband so far away, and you such a child, too. I 
wonder your mamma doesn’t come and stay with you for a 
bit. You must always come on our Thursdays. Now 
mind you do, my dear.” 

“I don’t think our Thursdays are remarkably enlivening, 
mother,” said Alicia, objecting to the faintest suggestion of 
fussiness, the crying sin of both her parents. And then she 
turned to Isola, and measured her from head to foot. 
“It’s rather a pity you don’t hunt,” she said. “We had 
a splendid morning with the harriers.” 

“Perhaps I may get a little hunting by and by, when my 
husband comes home.” 

“Ah, but one can’t begin all at once, and this is a diffi- 
cult country; breakneck hills and nasty fences. Plave you 
hunted much?” 

“Hardly at all. I was out in a boar hunt once, near 
Angers, but only as a looker-on. It was a grand sight. 
The Duke of Beaufort came over to Brittany on purpose to 
join in it.” 

“How glorious a boar hunt must be! I must get my 
father to take me to Angers next year. Do you know a 
great many people there?” 

“No, only two or three professors at the college, and the 
Marquis de Querangal, the gentleman who has the boar 
hounds. His daughter used to visit at Dinan, and she and 
I were great friends.” 

“Lord Lostwithiel talked about boar hunting the other 
night,” said Alicia. “It must be capital fun.” His name 
recurred in this way, whatever the conversation might be, 
with more certainty than zero on the wheel at roulette. 

He had been there in the evening, thought Isola. There 
had been a dinner party, perhaps, at which he had been 
present. She had not long to wonder. The name once 
pronounced, the stream of talk flowed on. Yes, there had 


46 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


been a dinner, and Lord Losthwithiel had been delightful ; 
so brilliant in conversation as compared with everybody 
else; so witty, so cynical, so Jin de sihle. 

“I didn’t hear him say anything very much out of the 
common,” said Mrs. Crowther in her matter-of-fact way. 

She liked having a nobleman or any other local magnate 
at her table; but she had too much common sense to be 
hypnotized by his magnificence, and made to taste milk and 
water as Maronean wine. 

‘‘Do you know Lord Lostwithiel?” Belinda asked lan- 
guidly as Isola sipped her tea, sitting shyly in the broad 
glare of a colossal fireplace. “Oh, yes, by the bye, you met 
him here the week before last.” 

Mrs. Disney blushed to the roots of those soft tendril- 
like curls which clustered about her forehead; but she said 
never a word. She had no occasion to tell them the history 
of that meeting in the rain, or of those many subsequent 
meetings which had drifted her into almost the familiarity 
of an old friendship. They might take credit to themselves 
for having made her acquainted with their star, if they liked. 
She had seen plenty of smart people at Dinan in those 
sunny summer months when visitors came from Dinard to 
look at the old quiet inland city. Lostwithiel’s rank had 
no disturbing influence upon her mind. It w r as himself — 
something in his look and in his voice, in the mere touch of 
his hand — an indescribable something which of late had 
moved her in his presence, and made her faintly tremulous 
at the very sound of his name. 

He was announced while they were talking of him, and 
he seemed surprised to come suddenly upon that slim, 
unobtrusive figure almost hidden by Belinda’s flowing gar- 
ment and fuller form. Belinda was decidedly handsome — 
handsomer than an heiress need be; but she was also just a 
shade larger than an heiress need be at three-and-twenty. 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER . 


47 


She was a Rubens beauty, expansive, florid, and fair, with 
reddish auburn hair piled on the top of her head. Sitting 
between this massive beauty and the still more massive 
chimney-piece, Mrs. Disney was completely hidden from 
the new arrival. 

He discovered her suddenly while he was shaking hands 
with Belinda, and his quick glance of pleased surprise did 
not escape that young lady’s steely blue eyes. Not a look 
or a breath ever does escape observation in a village draw- 
ing room. Even the intellectual people, the people who 
devour all Mudie’s most solid books — travels, memoirs, 
metaphysics, agnostic novels — even these are as keenly 
interested in their neighbors’ thoughts and feelings as the 
unlettered rustic in the village street. 

Lostwithiel took the proffered cup of tea, and planted 
himself near Mrs. Disney with his back against the marble 
caryatid which bore up one half of the chimney-piece. 
Alicia began to talk to him about his yacht. How were the 
repairs going on? and so on, and so on, delighted to air her 
technical knowledge. He answered her somewhat lan- 
guidly, as if the Vendetta were not first in his thoughts at 
this particular moment. 

“What about this ball?’’ he asked presently. “You are 
all going to be there, of course?’’ 

“Do you mean the hunt ball at Lostwithiel?’’ 

“Of course! What other ball could I mean? It is the 
great festivity of these parts — the one tremendous event 
of the winter season. It was a grand idea of you new 
people to revive the old festivity which had become a 
tradition. I wore my first dress coat at the Lostwithiel 
hunt ball nearly twenty years ago. I think it was there I 
first fell in love, with a young lady in pink tulle, who was 
miserable because she had been mistaken enough to wear 
pink at a hunt ball. I condoled with her, assured her that 


48 


ALL ALONG THE RLVER. 


in my eyes she was lovely, although her gown clashed — that 
was her word, I remember — with the pink coats. My coat 
was not pink, and I believe she favored me a little on that 
account. She gave me a good many waltzes in the course 
of the evening, and I can answer for her never wearing that 
pink frock again, for I trampled it to shreds. There were 
traces of her to be found all over the rooms, as if I had been 
Greenacre and she my victim’s body.” 

‘‘It will be rather a humdrum ball, I’m afraid,” said 
Belinda. ‘‘All the best people seem to be away.” 

‘‘Never mind that if the worst people can dance. I am 
on the committee, so I will answer for the supper and the 
champagne. You like a dry brand, of course, Miss 
Crowther. ” 

‘‘I never touch wine of any kind.” 

‘‘No; then my chief virtue will be thrown away upon 
you. Are all young ladies blue-ribbonites nowadays, I 
wonder? Mrs. Disney, pray tell me you are interested in 
the champagne question.” 

‘‘I am not going to the ball.” 

‘‘Not going! Oh, but it is a duty which you owe to the 
county! Do you think because you are an alien and a. 
foreigner you can flout our local gayeties — fleer at our 
solemnities? No, it is incumbent upon you to give us your 
support.” 

‘‘Yes, my dear, you must go to the ball,” put in 
Mrs. Crowther in her motherly tone. ‘‘ You are much too 
young and pretty to stay at home like Cinderella, while we 
are all enjoying ourselves. Of course you must go. 
Mr. Crowther has put down his name for five-and-twenty 
tickets, and I’m sure there’ll be one to spare for you, 
although we shall have a large house party.” 

‘‘Indeed you are too kind, but I couldn’t think ” 

faltered Isola, with a distressed look. 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER . 


49 


She knew that Lostwithiel was watching her from his 
vantage ground ever so far above her head. A man of six 
feet two has considerable advantages at a billiard table, and 
in a quiet flirtation carried on in public. 

“If it is a chaperon you are thinking about I’ll take care 
of you,” urged good Mrs. Crowther. 

“No, it isn’t on that account. Mrs. Baynham offered to 
take me in her party. But I really would much rather not be 
there. It would seem horrid to me to be dancing in a great, 
dazzling room among happy people while Martin is in 
Burmah, perhaps in peril of his life on that very night. 
One can never tell. I often shudder at the thought of what 
may be happening to him while I am sitting quietly by the 
fire. And what should I feel at a ball?” 

“I should hardly have expected you to have such roman- 
tic notions about Major Disney,” said Belinda coolly, 
“considering the difference in your ages.” 

“Do you suppose I care the less for him because he is 
twenty years older than I am?” 

“Twenty! Is it really as much as that?” ejaculated 
Mrs. Crowther, unaffectedly shocked. 

“He is just as dear to me,” pursued Isola warmly. “I 
look up to him, and love him with all my heart. There 
never was a better, truer man. From the time I began to 
read history I always admired great soldiers. I don’t mean 
to say that Martin is a hero — only I know he is a thor- 
ough soldier — and he seemed to realize all my childish 
dreams. ” 

She had spoken impetuously, fancying that there was 
some slight toward her absent husband in Miss Crowther’s 
speech. Her flash of anger made a break in the conversa- 
tion, and nothing more was said about her going or not 
going to the hunt ball. They talked of that entertainment 
in the abstract — discussed the floor, the lighting, the band, 


5 ° 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


and the great people who might be induced to appear if 
the proper pressure were put upon them. 

“There is plenty of time,” said Lostwithiel, “between 
now and the 20th of December — nearly three weeks. Time 
for you and your sister to get new frocks from London or 
Paris, Miss Crowther. You need new frocks, I suppose?” 

“One generally does have a new frock for a dance,” 
replied Belinda, “though the fashions this winter are so 
completely odious that I would much rather appear in a 
gown of my great-grandmother’s.” 

Lostwithiel smiled his slow, secret smile high up in the 
fainter firelight. He was reflecting upon his notion of 
Miss Crowther’s great-grandmother, in linsey-woolsey, with 
a lavender print apron, a costume that would be hardly 
impressive at a hunt ball. He did not give the young lady 
credit for a great-grandmother from the society point of 
view. There was the mother yonder — inoffensive respecta- 
bility — the grandmother would be humbler — and the great- 
grandmother he imagined at the washtub, or cooking the 
noontide meal for an artisan husband. Pie had never yet 
realized the idea of numerous generations of middle-class 
life upon the same plane, the same dead level of prosperous 
commerce. 

Isola rose to take leave, after having let her tea get cold, 
and dropped half her cake on the Persian rug. She felt 
shyer in that house than in any other. She had a feeling 
that there she was weighed in the balance and found want- 
ing; that unfriendly eyes were scrutinizing her gloves and 
hat, and appraising her features and complexion. She felt 
herself insignificant, colorless, insipid beside that brilliant 
Miss Crowther, with her vivid beauty, and her self-assured 
airs and graces. 

Tabitha urged her to be of good heart when she hinted at 
these feelings. 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


51 


“Why, Lord have mercy upon us, madam, however grand 
they may all look, it’s nothing but wool — only wool; and I 
heard there used to be a good deal of devil’s dust mixed 
with it after this Mr. Crowther came into the business.” 

The dusk was thickening a$ she went along the short 
avenue which led to the gates. Mr. Crowther, having built 
his house in a wood, had been able to cut himself out a 
carriage drive, which gave him an avenue of more than two 
centuries’ growth, and thus imparted an air of spurious 
antiquity to his demesne. He felt, as he looked at the 
massive boles of those old Spanish chestnuts, as if he had 
belonged to the soil since the Commonwealth. 

Even the lodge was an important building, Tudor on one 
side and monastic on the other, with that agreeable hodge- 
podge of styles which the modern architect loveth. It was 
a better house than the curate lived in, as he often told 
Miss Crowther. 

Isola quickened her pace outside that solemn gateway, 
and seemed to breathe more freely. She hurried even faster 
at the sound of a footstep behind her, though there was no 
need for nervous apprehensions at that early hour in the 
November evening on the highroad between Fowey and 
Trelasco. Did she know that firm, quick footfall, or was 
it an instinctive avoidance of an unknown danger which 
made hef hurry on till her heart began to beat stormily, and 
her breath came in short gasps? 

“My dear Mrs. Disney, do you usually walk as if for a 
wager?” asked a voice behind her. “lean generally get 
over the ground pretty fast, but it was as much as I could 
do to overtake you without running.” 

He was not breathless, however. His tones were firm 
and tranquil. It was she who could scarcely speak. 

“I’m afraid I am very late,” she answered nervously. 

“For what? For afternoon tea by your own fireside? 


5 * 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


Have you anybody waiting fo* you at the Angler’s Rest 
that you should be in such a hurry to get home?” 

“No, there is no one waiting except Tabitha. I expect 
no one.” 

“Then why walk yourself into a fever?” 

“Tabitha gets fidgety if I am out after dusk.” 

“Then let Tabitha fidget! It will be good for her liver. 
Those adipose people require small worries now and again 
to keep them in health. You mustn’t overpace yourself to 
oblige Tabitha.” 

She had slackened her steps, and he was walking by her 
side, looking down at her from that superb altitude which 
gave him an unfair advantage. How could she, upon her 
lower level, escape those searching glances? 

She knew that her way home was his way home, so far as 
the bend of the road which led away from the river; and 
to avoid him for the intervening distance would have been 
difficult. She must submit to his company on the road, or 
make a greater effort than it was in her nature to make. 

“You mean to go to this ball, don’t you?” he asked 
earnestly. 

“I think not.” 

“Oh, but pray do! Why should you shut yourself from 
all the pleasures of this world, and live like a nun, always? 
You might surely make just one exception for such a grand 
event as the hunt ball. You have no idea how much we all 
think of it hereabouts. Remember, it will be the first pub- 
lic dance we have had at Lostwithiel for ever so many 
years. You will see family diamonds enough to make you 
fancy you are at St. James’. Do you think Major Disney 
would dislike your having just one evening’s dissipation?” 

“Oh, no, he would not mind He is only too kind and 
indulgent. He would have liked me to spend the winter 
with my sister in Hans Place, where there would have 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


53 


been gayeties of all kinds; but I don’t want to go into 
society while Martin is away. It would not make me 
happy.” 

“But if it made someone else happy — if it made other 
people happy to see you there?” 

“Oh, but it would not matter to anybody! I am a stran- 
ger in the land. People are only kind to me for my hus- 
band’s sake.” 

“Your modesty becomes you as the dew becomes a rose. 
I won’t gainsay you — only be sure you will be missed if you 
don’t go to the ball. And if you do go — well, it will be an 
opportunity of making nice friends. It will be your debut 
in county society.” 

“Without my husband? Please don’t say any more about 
it, Lord Lostwithiel. I had much rather stay at home.” 

He changed the conversation instantly, asking her what 
she thought of Glenaveril. 

“I think the situation most lovely.” 

“Yes, there we are all agreed. Mr. Crowther had the 
good taste to find a charming site, and the bad taste to erect 
an architectural monstrosity, a chimera in red brick. There 
was a grange once in the heart of that wood, and the 
Crowthers have the advantage of acorns and chestnuts that 
sowed themselves while the sleepy old monks were telling 
their beads. How do you like Miss Crowther?” 

“I hardly know her well enough to like or dislike her. 
She is very handsome.” 

“So was Rubens’ wife, Helena Forman; but what would 
one do in a world peopled with Helena Formans? There 
are galleries in Antwerp which no man should enter without 
smoke-colored spectacles, if he would avoid being blinded 
by a blaze of red-haired beauty. I am told that the 
Miss Crowthers will have at least a million of money be- 
tween them in days to come, and that they are destined 


54 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


to make great matches. Perhaps we shall see some of their 
soupirants at the ball. Since the decay of the landed inter- 
est the chasse aux dots has become fiercer than of old.” 

This seemed to come strangely from him, who had already 
been talked of as a possible candidate for one of the Miss 
Crowthers. It would be such a particularly suitable match, 
Mrs. Baynham, the doctor’s wife, had told Isola. What 
could his lordship look for beyond a fine fortune and a 
handsome wife? 

“They would make such a splendid pair,” said Mrs. 
Baynham, talking of them as if they were carriage horses. 

Mrs. Disney and her companion crossed a narrow 
meadow from the highroad to the river path, which was the 
nearest way to the Angler’s Rest. The river went rippling 
by under the gathering gray of the November evening. On 
their right hand there was the gloom of dark woods; and 
from the meadow on their left rose a thick white mist, like 
a sea that threatened to swallow them up in its phantasmal 
tide. The sound of distant oars, dipping with rhythmical 
measure, was the only sound except their own voices. 

Did that three-quarters of a mile seem longer or shorter 
than usual? Isola hardly knew; but when she saw the 
lights shining in Tabitha’s kitchen, and the fireglow in the 
drawing room, she was glad with the gladness of one who 
escapes from some fancied danger of ghosts or goblins. 

Lostwithiel detained her at the gate. 

“Good-night,” he said; “good-night. You will change 
your mind, won’t you, Mrs. Disney? It is not in one so 
gentle as you to be inflexible about such a trifle. Say that 
you will honor our ball.” 

She drew herself up a little, as if in protest against his 
pertinacity. 

“I really cannot understand why you should care whether 
I go or stay away,” she said coldly. 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


55 


“Oh, but I do care It is childish, perhaps, on my part, 
but I do care ; I care tremendously, more than I have cared 
about anything for a long time. It is so small a thing on 
your part — it means so much for me! Say you will be 
there.” 

“Is that you, ma’am?” asked Tabitha’s pleasant voice, 
while Tabitha’s substantial soles made themselves audible 
upon the gravel path. “I was beginning to get fid[ey 
about you.” 

“Good-night,” said Isola shortly as she passed through 
the little gate. • 

It shut with a sharp little click of the latch, and she van- 
ished among the laurels and arbutus. He heard her voice 
and Tabitha’s as they walked toward the house in friendly 
conversation, mistress and maid. 

There was a great, overblown Dijon rose nodding its 
heavy head over the fence. Roses linger so late in that soft 
western air. Lostwithiel plucked the flower, and pulled off 
its petals one by one as he walked toward the village street. 

“Will she go — will she stay — go — stay — go — stay?” he 
muttered as the petals fluttered to the ground. 

“Go! Yes, of course she will go,” he said to himself as 
the last leaf fell. “Does it need ghost from the grave or 
rose from the garden to tell me that?” 


CHAPTER IV. 

“dreaming, she knew it was a dream.” 

Isola and Lostwithiel met a good many times after that 
walk through the autumn mists. She tried her utmost to 
avoid him. She went for fewer walks than of old; nay, she 
chiefly confined her perambulations to those domestic 


5 ^ 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


errands which Tabitha imposed upon her, and such after- 
noon visits as she felt it incumbent upon her to pay in strict 
return for visits paid to her. Major Disney had begged 
her to be exact in such small ceremonies, and to keep upon 
the best possible terms with his friends. “I love every soul 
in the place, for old sake’s sake,” he told her; and for old 
sake’s sake Isola had to cultivate the people her husband 
had known all his life. 

She tried to avoid Lostwithiel, but Fate was against her, 
and they met. He was unvaryingly courteous. He said 
no word which could offend the most .sensitive of women. 
Prudery itself could have had no ground for alarm. He did 
not again allude to the ball or his wishes upon that point. 
He talked of those common topics of interest to which 
every day and every season give rise, even in a Cornish vil- 
lage; and yet in this common talk acquaintance ripened 
until it became friendship unawares. And then — as all 
sense of shyness and reserve upon Isola’ s part gave way to 
a vague reposeful feeling, like drifting down a sunlit river, 
with never a breath of chilling wind — they began to 
exchange confidences about their past lives. Unawares 
Martin Disney’s wife found herself entering into the 
minutest details about the people she had met on that level 
road of a monotonous girlhood by which she had come to 
be what she was. Unawares she betrayed all her feelings 
and opinions, her likes and dislikes, and even the little 
weaknesses and eccentricities of her parents — her sister — 
her wealthy brother-in-law. Never before had she found 
so good a listener. Her husband had been all affectionate 
interest in the things that concerned her, yet she had often 
discovered that his mind was wandering in the midst of 
some girlish reminiscence, and he had a tiresome trick of 
forgetting all those particulars about her friends which 
would have enabled him to distinguish the personages of a 


ALL ALONG THE ELVER. 


57 


story. He had to be told everything afresh at each recur- 
rence of those names that were so familiar to her. Nor 
had he Lostwithiel’s keen sense of humor and quick per- 
ception of the ridiculous side of life, whereby many a small 
social sketch fell flat. 

The glimpses she caught of her new friend’s past exist- 
ence enthralled her. It was to see new vistas opening into 
unknown worlds: the world of university life; the world of 
society, English and Continental, with all its varieties of jar- 
gon; the world of politics and literature and art. It 
charmed him to see her interest in all those unknown things 
and people. 

“You would very soon be tired of it, and would come 
back to Trelasco, like the hare to her form — or like me,” 
he said, smiling at her ardent look. ‘‘Believe me, it is all 
dust and ashes. My happiest hours have been on board a 
yacht, with only half a dozen good books, and ten or a 
dozen ignoramuses in blue serge for my companions.” 

She was to go to the hunt ball, after all; not because he 
wished it, but because other people had taken her affairs in 
hand and decided that she should go. Dr. and Mrs. Bayn- 
ham had decided for her. Mrs. Vansittart Crowther had 
decided for her, and had sent her a ticket with her love by 
that very footman whose appearance when he opened the 
door always crushed her, and who had given her a frightful 
shock when she danced into the kitchen to speak to Tabitha, 
and found him meekly sitting on a Windsor chair, with his 
knees drawn up nearly to his chin. Lastly, Tabitha had 
decided; and Tabitha’s opinion went for more than that of 
anybody else. 

“You want a little bit of change and gayety,” said the 
faithful stewardess. “You have been looking pale and 
worried ever since you had that bad news from Broomer” — 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


58 

this was Tabitha’s nearest approach to Burmah — “and you’ll 
be all the better for an evening’s pleasure. It wasn’t as if 
you had to buy a dress, or even a pair of gloves. You’ve 
only worn your wedding dress at three parties since you 
came home from your honeymoon, and it’s as fresh as if 
you’d been married yesterday. You’ve got everything, and 
everything of the best. Why shouldn’t you go?’’ 

Isola could advance no reason, except her vague fear that 
her husband might not approve of her appearing at a pub- 
lic ball without him; but at this objection honest Tabitha 
snapped her fingers. 

“I’ll answer for Mr. Martin,’’ she said. “He’ll be 
pleased for you to enjoy yourself. ‘Don’t let her mope 
while I’m away, Tabby,’ he said to me the day before you 
started for foreign parts. He’d like you to be at the ball. 
You’ll have Mrs. Baynham to take care of you, and what 
can you want more than that, I should like to know?’’ 

Mrs. Baynham, the portly doctor’s wife, was, in Tabitha’s 
mind, the representative of all the respectabilities How 
could a i girl just out of her teens — a girl who loved dancing, 
and had been told she danced exquisitely- — turn a deaf ear 
to such arguments, put forward by the person to whose care 
her husband had in some wise confided her. If Tabitha 
approved, Isola thought she could not do wrong in yielding; 
so the simply fashioned white satin gown — made in Paris, 
and with all Parisian chic — was taken out of the pot-pourri 
perfumed drawer. Gloves and fan and little white slippers 
were passed in review. There was nothing wanted. The 
carefullest housewife need not have hesitated on the score 
of economy. 

So the question was finally settled — she was to go to the 
hunt ball. A fly was engaged for her especial service, so 
that she might not crowd Mrs. Baynham, who was to take 
two fresh, fat-cheeked nieces, who looked as if they had 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


59 


been fed from infancy upward upon apple pasties and clotted 
cream. She was to drive to Lostwithiel in the fly from the 
Maypole Inn, and she was to join Mrs. Baynham in the 
cloakroom, and make her entrance under that lady’s wing. 

This final decision was arrived at about ten days before 
the event, and for nine of those intervening days Isola’s life 
went by as if she were always sitting in that imaginary boat 
drifting down a sunlit river; but on the day of the dance, 
after just half an hour’s quiet walk with Lostwithiel on the 
towpath, she went back to the cottage, pale as ashes; and 
sat down at her little davenport in the drawing room, 
trembling, breathless, and on the verge of hysteria. 

She opened the drawers of the davenport one after 
another, looking for something — helplessly, confusedly, as 
one whose brain is half distraught. It was ten minutes 
before she found what she wanted — a sheaf of telegraph 
forms. 

“To Major Disney, Cornwall Fusiliers, Rangoon: 

“Let me go to you at once. I am miserable. My heart 
will break if you leave me here.’’ 

This was the gist of a message which she wrote half a 
dozen times, in different words, upon half a dozen forms. 
Then she tore up all but the last, left that one in her blot- 
ting book, and began to pace the room feverishly, with her 
hands clasped before her face. 

What fever-fraught vision was it that those hands tried to 
shut out from her burning eyes? So little had happened — 
so little — only half an hour’s quiet walk along the towpath, 
where the leafless willows had a weird, uncanny look, like 
those trees whose old gray branches seemed the arms of the 
Erlking’s daughters, beckoning the child as he nestled in 
his father’s arms, riding through the night. So little — so 


6o 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


little — and yet it meant the lifting of a veil — the passage 
from happy, ignorant innocence to the full consciousness of 
an unholy love. It meant what one kiss on trembling lips 
meant for Paolo and Francesca. It meant the plunge into 
a gulf of dark despair — unless she had strength to draw 
back, seeing the abyss at her feet, warned of her danger. 

What had he said? Only a few agitated words — only a 
revelation. He loved her, loved her with all the passion of 
his passionate soul; loved her as he had never loved before. 
They all tell the same story, these destroyers of innocence; 
and, for that one burning moment, they all mean what they 
say. Every seducer has his hour of sublime truthfulness; 
of generous feeling; of ardent, heroic aspirations; the hour 
in which he would perish for the woman he loves; cut off 
his right hand; burn out his eyes; leap off a monument; do 
anything except surrender her, except forego his privilege 
to destroy her. 

It was not too late. The warning had come in time — 
just in time to save her. She knew now to what ocean that 
drifting boat was carrying her — through the sunny atmos- 
phere, between the flowery shores of dreamland. It was 
taking her to the arctic ocean of shame and ruin — the great 
sea strewn with the corpses of women who had sinned, and 
suffered, and repented, and died — unforgiven of mankind 
— to wait the tribunal of God. 

“Oh, lor’!” cried Tabitha, bursting into the room. “I 
thought you were never coming home. You ought to go 
and lay down for two or three hours after your tea, or we 
shall have you fainting away before the night’s over. 
You’ve not been eating enough for a healthy canary bird 
for the last week.” 

“I’m not very well, Tabbie. I don’t think I’ll go to 
the ball.” 

“Not go! and when the fly’s ordered — and will have to 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER . 


6 1 


be paid for whether or no ; for Masters told me he could have 
let it twelve deep. Not go ! and disappoint Mrs. Baynham, 
who has set her heart on taking you; and Mrs. Crowther, 
who gave you the ticket! Why, it would never do! 
You’ll feel well enough when you’re there. You won’t 
know whether you’re standing on your head or your heels. 
It’s past five o’clock, and your tea has been ready in the 
study since a quarter to.” 

“How do you send telegrams to India, Tabitha?” 

“Lor, ma’am, how should I know? From the post- 
office, I suppose, pretty much like other telegrams. But 
they cost no end of money, I’ll be bound. You’re not 
wanting to send a telegram to the major, are you, ma’am, 
to ask his leave about the ball?” 

“No; I was only wondering,” Isola answered feebly. 

She shut and locked the davenport, leaving her message 
in the blotting book. She meant to send it, if not to-day, 
to-morrow; if not before the ball, after the ball. She felt 
that her only hope of peace and safety and a clear con- 
science was at her husband’s side. She must go out to him 
yonder in the unknown land. Must get to him somehow, 
with or without his leave — with or without his help. She 
would brave anything, hazard anything to be with that 
faithful friend and defender — her first love — her brave, 
self-denying, God-fearing lover. She felt as if there were 
no other safety or shelter for her in all the world. 

“God will not help me unless I help myself,” she mut- 
tered distractedly, as she sat in her low chair by the fire, 
with her head flung back upon the cushions and the 
untouched meal at her side. Tabitha had left off providing 
dinner for her, at her particular request. She had neither 
heart to sit down alone to a formal dinner nor appetite to 
eat it; so Tabitha had exercised all her skill as a cook, 
which was great, in preparing a dainty little supper at nine 


62 


ALL ALONG THE EL FEE. 


o’clock; and it had irked her that her mistress did such 
scant justice to the tempting meal. 

Isola fell asleep by the fire, comforted by the warmth, 
worn out by nights that had been made sleepless by vague 
agitation — by the living over again of accidental meetings 
and friendly conversations — not by fear or remorse — for it 
was only this day that the danger of that growing friend- 
ship had been revealed to her. It was only to-day that 
she knew what such friendships mean. 'She slept a fev- 
erish sleep, from sheer exhaustion, and dreamed fever 
dreams. 

Those willows on the bank had recalled Goethe’s “Erl 
Konig’’ — the ballad she had learned by rote in her earliest 
German studies — and the willows and the ballad were inter- 
woven with her dreams. It was Martin Disney who was 
riding his charger along a dark road, and she was sitting in 
front of his saddle, clinging to him, hiding her face upon 
his breast, and the willows were beckoning — she knew those 
gaunt arms were beckoning to her, although her eyes were 
hidden — and he was following. He was thundering behind 
them, on a black horse. Yes, and then the dream changed 
— the dreamer’s wandering thoughts directed by another 
reminiscence of those girlish studies in German poetry. 
She was Lenore, and she was in the arms of her dead lover. 
She felt that bony arm — Death’s arm — clutching her round 
the waist, her streaming hair mingled with the streaming 
mane of that unearthly horse. She was with Lostwithiel — 
in his arms — and they were both dead and both happy — 
happy in being together. What did they want more than 
that? 


“Vollbracht, vollbracht ist unser Lauf! 
Das Hochzeitbette, thut sich auf! 

Die Todten reiten schnelle! 

Wir sind, wir sind, zur Stelle.” 


ALL ALONG THE ELVER . 


6 3 


She woke with the chill of the charnel house freezing her 
blood. The fire had gone out. Tim had curled himself 
at her feet in the folds of her gown. The Persian was 
staring discontentedly at the ashes in the grate, and Tabitha’s 
sturdy footsteps might be heard in the room above, bustling 
to and fro, and anon poking the fire and putting on coals, 
making all snug and ready for her mistress’ toilet. 

Isola rang, and Susan, the parlor maid, brought in the lamp. 

“I came twice before, ma’am; but you were fast asleep, 
so I took the lamp back to the pantry.” 

Isola looked at the clock. Ten minutes to nine, and she 
was to meet Mrs. Baynham in the cloakroom at half-past 
ten. Ten o’clock was the hour on the card, and the 
fat-faced nieces were feverishly afraid that all the eligible 
partners would be snapped up by those wise virgins who 
appeared earliest on the scene. 

‘‘You won’t keep us waiting in the cloakroom, will you, 
dear Mrs. Disney?” they pleaded coaxingly. 

Was she to put on her finery and go? There would be 
time yet to send a note to Mrs. Baynham, excusing herself 
on the score of illness. The doctor’s party would not start 
before half-past nine. What was she to do? Oh, she 
wanted to see him once more — just once more — in the 
brightly lighted rooms, amid a crowd — in a place where he 
would have no chance of repeating those wicked, wicked 
words — of forgetting all that was due to his own honor and 
to hers. In the crowded ballroom there would be safety — 
safety even from evil thoughts. Who could think of any- 
thing with dance music sounding in their ears, amid the 
dazzle of lamps and the flashing of jewels? 

She wanted to go to the ball, to wear her satin gown, to 
steep herself in light and music; and thus to escape from 
the dim horrors of that awful dream. 

Tabitha seemed like a good angel, when she came in at 


6 4 


ALL ALONG THE ELVER. 


this juncture with a fresh cup of tea and a plate of dainty 
little chicken sandwiches. 

“Come now, ma’am, I shan’t let you go to the ball if you 
don’t take these. What, not a bit of fire — and you asleep 
here in the cold? What was that addle-pated Susan think- 
ing about, I wonder? I’ll take the tray upstairs. There’s 
a lovely fire in your room, and everything ready for you to 
dress. I want to be able to tell Mr. Martin that his young 
wife was the belle of the ball.’’ 

Isola allowed herself to be led upstairs to the bright, 
cheerful bedroom, with its pretty chintz-pattern paper, and 
photographs, and artistic muslin curtains, and glowing fire, 
and toilet table, with its -glitter of crystal and silver in the 
pleasant candlelight. She suffered herself to be fed and 
dressed by Tabitha’s skillful hands, almost as if she had 
been a child; and she came out of her dismal dream into 
the glad waking world, a radiant figure, with violet eyes 
and alabaster complexion, lighted up by the loveliest hectic. 
The simply made, close-fitting bodice, with folded crape 
veiling the delicate bust, and the pure pearly tint of the 
satin, set off her fragile beauty, while the long train and 
massive folds of the rich fabric gave statuesque grace to her 
tall, slim figure; but the crowning glory of her toilet was 
the garland of white chrysanthemums, for which Tabitha 
had ransacked all the neighboring greenhouses; a garland 
of fluffy, feathery petals, which reached in a diagonal line 
from her shoulder to the hem of her gown. It was her only 
ornament, for by some strange caprice she refused to wear 
the modest pearl necklace and diamond cross which had 
been her husband’s wedding gift. 

“Not to-night, Tabbie,’’ she said; and Tabitha saw in 
this refusal only the coquetry of a 1 ovely woman who 
wanted to show the great ladies and squires’ wives how poor 
and common diamonds are by the side of youth and beauty. 


ALL ALONG THE RLVER, 


65 


“Well, you don’t want any jewels, certainly,’" said 
Tabitha. “You look as if you were going to be married — 
all but the veil. Those chrysanthemums are ever so much 
prettier than orange blossoms. There’s the fly. Let me 
put on your cloak. It’s a beautiful night, and almost as 
mild as May. Everybody will be at the ball. There’s 
nothing to keep folks away. Well, I do wish the major 
was here to go with you. Wouldn’t he be proud?’’ 

The stars were shining when Isola went along the gravel 
path to the gate where Masters’ fly was waiting, with blaz- 
ing lamps which seemed to put those luminous worlds 
yonder to shame. There was no carriage drive to the hall 
door of the Angler’s Rest. The house retained all its 
ancient simplicity, and ignored the necessities of carriage 
people. Tabitha wrapped her mistress’ fur-lined cloak 
close round her, before she stepped into the fly, which was 
provided with those elaborate steps that seem peculiar to 
the hired brougham. 

“Good-night, Tabitha, and thank you for the pains you’ve 
taken in dressing me — and for the lovely wreath. I shall 
come home early. I shan’t wait for Mrs. Baynham’s party.’’ 

“Don’t you hurry,’’ said Tabitha heartily. “The hunt 
ball only comes once a year, and you’d better make the 
most of it. I shan’t mind sitting up; and perhaps I shan’t 
be half so dull as you think for.’’ 

The flyman shut the door, which nobody but himself 
could shut — another peculiarity of hired broughams. The 
fly vanished in the darkness, and Tabitha ran back to the 
house, where she found Susan waiting at the hall door in 
her jacket and hat, as near a reproduction of Mrs. Disney’s 
jacket and hat as local circumstances — or the difference 
between Bond Street and Lostwithiel — would allow. 

“Have you locked and bolted the back doors?’’ asked 
Tabitha, “but, lor, I’ll go and look myself; I won’t trust 


66 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


to your giddy young brains. Mr. Tinkerly will be here 
with the cart directly. I’ve only got to put on my bonnet 
and dolman, after I’ve taken a look round, and put away 
Mrs. Disney’s jewel box.” 

Tabitha was no light-minded housekeeper, but she had 
her hours of frivolity, and she loved pleasure with the inno- 
cent freshness of a most transparent soul. Tinkerly, the 
butcher, had offered to drive the two ladies — Tabitha and 
Susan — into Lostwithiel in his tax cart; and, furthermore, 
to place them where they would see something of the ball, 
or at least of the company arriving and departing, and 
beyond all this to give them a snack of supper, “just 
something to bite at and a glass of beer,” he told Tabitha 
deprecatingly, lest he should raise hopes beyond his power 
of realization. 

He meant to do the thing as handsomely as circum- 
stances would permit, certainly to the extent of cold boiled 
beef and pickles, with Guinness or Bass. He was a family 
man, and of irreproachable respectability, and his meat was 
supposed to be unmatchable for thirty miles round. He 
grew it himself, upon those picturesque pastures which 
sloped skyward, dipping toward the blue of the river, rising 
toward the blue of the sky. 

No precaution of lock, bolt, or bar did Tabitha neglect 
before she put on her best bonnet and dignified black cloth 
dolman, heavy with imitation Astrachan. She and Susan 
were standing at the gate when Tinkerly drove up with his 
skittish mare and spring cart, a cart so springy that it 
threatened to heel over altogether when Tabitha clambered 
into the place of honor. Mr. Tinkerly’s foreman was sit- 
ting behind to take care of Susan, and the foreman was 
unmarried, and of a greasy black-haired comeliness, and 
there was none happier than Susan under those wintry stars 
— not even the great ladies in their family diamonds. 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


67 


“What are diamonds,” said Susan philosophically, with 
the foreman’s arm sustaining her at a sharp turn in the 
road, “if you don’t care for each other?” 


CHAPTER V. 

“and the child-cheek blushing scarlet for 

THE VERY SHAME OF BLISS.” 

People who were familiar with the Talbot Hotel, Lost- 
withiel, in its everyday aspect would hardly have recognized 
the old-fashioned hostelry to-night, under the transforming 
hand of the Hunt Club, with Lord Lostwithiel and Van- 
sittart Crowther on the committee.^ The entrance hall, 
usually remarkable only for various cases of stuffed birds, 
and a monster salmon — caught in the Lerrm River in some 
remote period of history — was now a bower of crimson cloth 
and white azalias. In the ballroom and ante-room, tea 
room and supper room were more flowers, and more crim- 
son cloth, while on every side brushes and vizards against 
the crimson and white paneling testified to the occasion. 
The dancing room was very full when Mrs. Baynham’s 
party made their entrance, the matron in her historical 
black velvet — which had formed part of her trousseau thir- 
teen years before, when she left the family residence in the 
chief street of Truro, and all those privileges which apper- 
tained to her as the only daughter of a provincial banker, to 
grace Dr. Baynham’s lowlier dwelling. The black velvet 
gown had been “let out” from time to time, as youth 
expanded into maturity; and there had been a new bodice 
and a real Maltese lace flounce within the last three years, 
which constituted a second ipcarnation; and Mrs. Baynham 
walked into the Talbot ballroom with the serene demeanor 


68 


ALL ALONG THE RLVER. 


that goes with a contented mind. She was satisfied with 
herself, and she was proud of her party, the two fresh, 
rosy-cheeked girls in sky-blue tulle, Isola looking like a 
May lily in her white satin raiment, and the village sur- 
geon, who always looked his best in his dress clothes, newly 
shaven, and, as it were, pulled together in honor of the 
occasion. 

The room was full, and very full; but Lostwithiel was not 
there. Isola had an instinctive consciousness that he was 
missing in that brilliant crowd. People came buzzing 
round her, and she was made room for upon a raised bench 
opposite the gallery, where a military band was playing a 
polka in which the brasses predominated to an ear-splitting 
extent. 

The Glenaveril party made their entrance ten minutes 
later. The Crowther girls were not afraid of wanting part- 
ners. Most young men are glad to dance with half a 
million of money. There is always an off chance of a good 
thing, just as there is a chance of breaking the bank at 
Monte Carlo. Belinda looked superb in a cloud of tulle, 
like a goddess; Alicia looked too well on horseback to look 
well off. Her spare, straight figure and sharp elbows were 
not at their best in evening dress. She wore black and an 
infinity of bugles, and flashed and glittered more than any- 
one else in the room, though she wore never a jewel. 

“Worth, my dear,” said Mrs. Baynham to a blue niece, 
in a mysterious whisper; “I know his style.” 

There was a buzz of conversation on that raised divan 
where the matrons w r ere sitting with those newly arrived 
maidens who were like ships waiting to slide out of their 
cradles and float away to sea. Isola and the sky-blue 
nieces had not long to wait; especially Isola. Men were 
entreating the stewards to introduce them to that lovely 
fragile looking creature in white satin — the best men, the 


ALL ALONG THE RLVER. 


69 


most distinctly county, or those wandering stars from dis- 
tant counties, or the London galaxy, “men with handles to 
their names,” as Mr. Baynham told Mrs. Crowther, re- 
splendent in salmon brocade and Venetian point. 

“My presentation gown,” she informed the doctor’s wife, 
“the court mantle is ruby velvet, lined with salmon satin. 
The weight of it almost pulled me backward when I courte- 
sied to the royalties — such a lot of them, and I’m afraid 
I courtesied rather too low to one of the princesses, for I 
caught her taking me off when she returned my courtesy.” 

Isola danced through the lancers as one in a dream. 
When the heart of a man is oppressed with care, “Ta-rarra, 
ta-rarra, ta-ra, ta-ra!” What foolishness it all seemed. 
And her husband in Burmah, hemmed round by murderous 
dacoits ! 

She went back to her seat among the matrons, after 
almost curtly refusing either refreshment or a promenade 
through the rooms. Mrs. Crowther was saying solemnly, 
“I do believe Lord Lostwithiel is not coming after all, and 
yet he worked so hard on the committee, my husband said, 
and took such pains about the flowers, and what not.” 

The tall, slim figure cut its way through the crowd two or 
three minutes later, and Lostwithiel was standing in front 
of Isola and the two matrons. 

He wore a pink coat, as became a member of the Lost- 
withiel Hunt, and the vivid color accentuated the pallor of 
his long, thin face. He talked to all the ladies on the 
divan; to the sky-blue nieces even, hoping that their cards 
were full. 

“If not, I must bring you some men I know,” he said. 
“You mustn’t miss a dance.” 

They blushed and trembled with delight, never before 
having been thus familiarly addressed by a peer of the 
realm. He asked Isola for her programme, with well- 


70 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER . 


simulated indifference, yet with that air of profound respect 
with which he talked to all women. 

“I hope you can spare me some waltzes,” he said. 

‘‘She is only just come,” said Mrs. Baynham. 

‘‘And yet her card is almost full. People have been very 
officious. Here is a poor little waltz — number seven. 
May I have that, and number eleven, and number ” 

‘‘Please don’t put down your name for anything later 
than number eleven. I shall be gone long before those 
late dances.” 

‘‘Oh, surely, you don’t mean to desert us early. Re- 
member this is the one festive occasion of our lives as a 
sporting community. All our other meetings are given up 
to carking care, financial difficulties, and squabbling. 
I shall put down my name in these tempting blanks, and if 
you disappoint me — well — it will only be like my previous 
experiences as a fox hunter.” 

He gave her back her programme, with all the blanks 
filled in, and at the bottom a word written, and triply 
underscored: 

’ANArKH. 

They had talked of Victor Hugo’s romantic story — that 
romance which the great man so despised in after years that 
he was almost offended if anyone presumed to praise it in 
his hearing, although in the half century that has gone 
since Victor Hugo was a young man, this story of Notre 
Dame has been unsurpassed as an example of the romantic 
novel. Lostwithiel had praised the book, and had talked 
of the monk Frollo, and his fatal love — and that word 
Fatality, graven upon the wall of his cell, and burned into 
his soul. 

Isola knew what those Greek letters meant. She dropped 
the little white-and-gold programme as if it had been an 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


71 


adder. He went away to a duty dance with a great lady of 
the district — a lady whose diamonds made a light about her 
wherever she moved; and then he waltzed with Belinda 
Crowther, to the admiration of the young lady’s mother, 
and of two or three other matrons on the divan by the door. 
Were they not a splendid couple, she so brilliantly fair, he 
dark and pale, bronzed slightly with exposure to the sun in 
warmer climates than this — not positively handsome, but 
with such an interesting countenance. So and so and so 
prosed the matrons, until various middle-aged cavaliers 
came to invite them to the tea room, where there was the 
usual drawback in the shape of a frightful draft from 
open windows, which the dancers, coming in flushed and 
heated, voted delicious. 

“This will be a good night’s work for me,’’ said Dr. 
Baynham cheerfully, although he considered it his duty to 
warn his patients of their danger. 

Conscience thus satisfied, he could look on complacently 
as they ate ices, and selected cool corners of the refresh- 
ment room to flirt in. 

“Next to a juvenile party, I don’t know anything better 
— from a professional point of view — than a public ball,’’ 
he said. “Your canvas corridors, decorated with flowers 
and bunting, are a fortune to a family practitioner.” 

Isola danced every dance. She hardly knew who her 
partners were. She had only a sense of floating in a vortex 
of light and color, to some swinging melody. Everything 
was dreamlike — but not horrible, as in her dream by the 
fireside at home. This was a happy dream, as of a creature 
with wings, who knew not of care in the present or a soul to 
be saved in the future. And then came her waltz with 
Lostwithiel, and that strong arm was round her, bearing her 
up as a flower is borne upon a rushing tide, so that she had 
no consciousness of movement on her own part, only of 


72 ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 

floating, floating, floating, to that languid three-time melody. 

It was the last popular waltz they were playing — a waltz 
that had been last summer’s delight in the arid gardens of 
South Kensington — “II n’y a que toi”; a waltz with a 
chorus which the band trolled out merrily, at intervals, to 
the French of Stratford atte Bow. 

“II n’y a que toi,’’ whispered Lostwithiel, with his lips 
close to the soft brown hair above the white forehead. 
“Not a bad name for a waltz when one is waltzing with 
just one person in the world.’’ 

Out in the cool night there was a little knot of people as 
merry after their homelier fashion as town and county in the 
ballroom. One of the windows had been opened at the top 
for ventilation, and this opening had been turned to advan- 
tage. A large substantial kitchen table had been placed 
in front of the window; and, upon this improvised platform 
stood Tabitha, Susan, the head chambermaid, and the 
hostler’s wife — this last on suffrance, and evidently not in 
society — looking on at the ball. The window was under a 
broad, wooden veranda, just above these spectators’ heads. 
They were thus in dense shadow, and unseen by the occu- 
pants of the lamplit room. 

Susan was exuberant in her delight. 

“I was never at a ball before,’’ she said. “Oh, aint it 
lovely? Don’t I wish I could dance like that? Lor’, do 
look at that fat old party, spinning round like a teetotum! 
Well, I never did ! Don’t she perspire ! ’ ’ exclaimed Susan, 
indulging in a running commentary which left much to be 
desired in the matter of refinement. 

This unsophisticated damsel heartily admired youth and 
beauty, and the smart frocks and flashing gems; but she 
was cruelly hard upon those dancers whose charms were on 
the wane, or whose frocks were inferior or ugly. 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


73 


“Well, I wouldn’t,” said Susan, “I wouldn’t go to a ball 
like this if I couldn’t have everything nice. Look at that 
tall girl in yeller. Did you ever see such a scarecrow? 
I’d ever so much rather stay at home, or stand outside, like 
this; I should feel it better became me.” 

Tabitha made no such remarks. She was singularly 
silent and thoughtful, as she stood looking down at the 
crowded room from her point of vantage on the kitchen 
table. She had only eyes for one figure — the willowy form 
in the glistening white satin gown, with the feathery Jap- 
anese chrysanthemums, a little crushed and faded by this 
time; or perhaps it may be said for two figures, since one 
followed the other as the shadow follows the substance. 
She saw them waltzing together, when supper was in full 
progress, and the room comparatively clear. She saw the 
graceful head inclining toward his shoulder, the slender 
waist held in his firm embrace ; and it seemed to her that 
the waltz was an invention of the Arch Enemy. She 
thought of it very much as people thought seventy years ago, 
when Byron wrote his poetical denunciation of the new 
dance. She saw those two moving slowly toward an adja- 
cent anteroom, where banks of flowers and a couple of sofas 
and low easy-chairs made a retreat which was half boudoir, 
half conservatory. She saw them moving side by side, 
talking to each other in tones so confidential that his head 
bent low over hers each time she spoke ; and then she 
watched them sitting side by side just within the doorway, 
at an angle where she could see their faces, and attitudes, 
still in the same confidential converse; she with downcast 
eyes, and he leaning forward with his elbow on his knee and 
looking up at her as he talked. 

“It is too bad of him,” muttered Tabitha, writhing at 
that spectacle. “Does he think what a child she is, and what 
harm he may be doing? It is wicked of him, and he knows 


74 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


it; and other people must notice them — other people must 
see what I see — and they will be talking of her, blighting 
her good name. Oh, if I could only get her away at once 
before people begin to notice her/’ 

She could see her young mistress’ face distinctly in the 
lamplight. Isola was very pale, and her face was full of 
trouble; not the face of a woman amusing herself with an 
idle flirtation, playing with fire without the least intention 
of burning her fingers. There were plenty of flirtations of 
that order going on in the Talbot ballroom; but this was 
not one of them. This meant peril of some kind. This 
was all evil. That pale face, those heavy eyelids, shroud- 
ing eyes which dared nqt look up. That tremulous, uncer- 
tain movement of the snowy ostrich fan. All these were 
danger signals. 

“If I get her safe at home presently, I’ll open her eyes 
for her,’’ thought Tabitha. “I’ll talk to her as if I was her 
mother. God knows I should be almost as sorry as ever 
her mother could be if she came to any harm.” 

If she came to any harm. What harm was there to fear 
for her as she sat there, with Lostwithiel lounging across 
the low chair beside the sofa where she sat, leaning forward 
to look into her downcast face? What harm could come to 
her except that which meant destruction — death to peace, 
and gladness, and womanly fame? If there were danger it 
was a desperate danger, and Tabitha shuddered at the mere 
thought of that peril. 

“But, lor, she’s little more than a child,’’ mused Tabitha. 
“She means no wrong, and she knows no wrong. She’s 
too innocent to come to any harm.” 

Yet, in the landlady’s snuggery, by and by, seated at the 
comfortable round table, with its spotless damask and 
bright glass and silver, Tabitha was quite unable to do 
justice to that snack which Mr. Tinkerly had ordered in her 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


75 


honor — a chicken and lobster salad from the supper room, 
and three parts of a pineapple cream. Susan and the fore- 
man fully appreciated these dainties; but Tabitha only 
munched a crust and sipped a tumbler of beer. 

“I’m a little bit out of sorts to-night,” she said. 

“I hope you haven’t taken cold, Mrs. Thomas,” said the 
polite Tinkerly. ‘‘Perhaps we ought to have brought 
another rug?” 

‘‘No, it isn’t that. I’ve been quite warm and comfort- 
able. Eat your supper, Mr. Tinkerly, and don’t bother 
about me. I’ve been interested in looking on, and I’m too 
much took up with what I’ve seen to be able to eat.” 

“Well, it was a pretty sight,” exclaimed Tinkerly enthu- 
siastically; “but I don’t think lever saw such a mort of 
plain women in my life.” 

“Lor, Mr. Tinkerly,” cried Susan, with a shocked air. 
“Why, look at our young mistress, and at Miss Crowther, 
and Miss Spenthrop from Truro, and Mrs. Pencarrow, and 
Lady Chanderville.” 

“Well, I don’t say they’re all ugly; some of ’em are 
handsome enough, and there’s plenty of thoroughbreds 
among ’em, but there’s a sight of plain-headed ones. 
There’s quite as much beauty in your spear as there is 
among the county folks, Miss Susan. I’ll answer for that.” 

The night was waning. Isola had ordered her carriage 
for half-past two; but three o’clock had struck from the 
church tower of Lostwithiel, and the dance was still at its 
height — at its best, the dancers said, now that the sensual 
attractions of the supper room drew off a good many people, 
and left the floor so much clearer than before supper, when 
bulky middle-aged gentlemen, talking to the matrons seated 
upon the divan, had projected their ponderous persons into 
the orbit of the waltzers. 


76 


ALL ALONG THE RLVER. 


Isola and Lostwithiel had danced only two waltzes, but 
since two o’clock they had sat out several dances, Mrs. Dis- 
ney having canceled all her engagements after that hour by 
declaring that she would dance no more. 

“I am dreadfully tired,” she told her partners piteously, 
and her pallor gave force to the assertion. ‘‘Please get 
someone else for our dance, Captain Morshead,” and so on, 
and so on, to half a dozen disappointed suitors. 

Perhaps some of these who happened to be experienced 
in such complications may have divined which way the wind 
blew, for no one offered to sit out the promised dances, and 
Isola and Lostwithiel were left pretty much to themselves 
among the palms and orange trees in the anteroom. They 
were not unobserved, however; and among the eyes which 
marked them with no friendly notice were the fine, steel- 
blue eyes of Miss Crowther. 

“Is that a flirtation?” she asked Capain Morshead, 
glancing in the direction of the anteroom where those two 
were sitting, as she and Isola’ s cast-off partner waltzed past 
the muslin-draped doorway. 

‘‘They seem rather fond of talking to each other, don’t 
they? Who was she? She’s uncommonly pretty.” 

‘‘Oh, her people were army, I believe — as poor as church 
mice — buried alive in Dinan.” 

‘‘At Dinan — and now she lives at Trelasco, she tells me. 
It seems scarcely worth while to have exhumed her in order 
to bury her again. Such a girl as that ought to be in Lon- 
don enjoying life. ” 

‘‘Oh, but she’s a grass widow, don’t you know. Her 
husband is in Burmah. I don’t think it’s quite nice in her 
to be here to-night; only, as my too good-natured mother 
sent her a ticket, I suppose I oughtn’t to say anything about 
it. Perhaps if mother sees the way she goes on with Lord 
Lostwithiel she’ll rather regret that ticket.” 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


77 


What was he saying all this time in that gentle baritone, 
which was heard only by one listener? He was asking her 
forgiveness for his indiscretion of the afternoon, and in that 
prayer for pardon was repeating his offense. She was less 
inclined to be angry, perhaps, now. The magic of the 
dance was still upon her senses, the dance which had 
brought them nearer than all the days they had met; than 
all their long, confidential conversations on the heights 
above the harbor, or on the river path, or dawdling on the 
bridge. She had felt the beating of his heart against her 
own, breath mingling with breath, the thrilling touch of his 
encircling arm; and it was as if he had woven a spell around 
her which made her his. She had never danced with her 
husband, who had no love of that heathenish art. In all 
their brisk, frank courtship there had been no intoxicating 
hours. She hardly knew what dancing meant till she 
waltzed with Lostwithiel, who had something of the fiery 
ardor of a pagan worshiping his gods in wild gyrations upon 
moonlit mountain or in secret cave. She let him talk to 
her to-night — let him pour out the full confession of his 
unhappy love. He spoke not as one who had hope ; not 
with that implied belief in her frailty which would have 
startled her into prompt resistance. His accents were the 
accents of despair, his love was a dark fatality. 

’ANArKH. 

“Why did you write that word on my programme?” she 
asked. 

“Why? Because I could not give you back that card 
without some token of my passion — with only commonplace 
entries which Jones, Brown, and Robinson might write 
there. I want you to feel that you belong to me, somehow, 
in some way, as the spirits of the dead and the souls of the 


78 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


living belong to each other sometimes by links which none 
can see. When I am at the other end of the earth I want 
to feel that there is something, if it were only a word, like a 
masonic sign, between us; if it were only a promise that in 
such or such a phase of the waning moon we would each 
look up and breathe the other’s name.” 

“You are going away?” 

“What else can I do? Can I stay? You tell me I made 
you miserable by what I said this afternoon. That means 
we must meet no more. I can’t be sorry for my offense — 
but I cannot answer for myself. My love has passed the 
point of sanity and self-control. I have no option. I 
must offend you, or I must leave you.” 

“You need not leave Trelasco, ” she said gently; “I am 
going away to-morrow.” 

‘‘Going away. Where?” 

‘‘To London first, and then to India.” 

‘‘ToBurmah? Impossible!” 

‘‘If not to Burmah, to the nearest convenient station. I 
am going to my husband; as nearly as I can reach him ; and 
as quickly as I can make the journey.” 

‘‘You are dreaming.” 

‘‘No, I have quite made up my mind. I hated to be 
left behind last year; and now that his return is deferred 
my only chance of happiness is to go to him. Someone 
called me a grass widow the other day. What a detestable 
name!” 

‘‘Give me this one waltz?” he asked, without any com- 
ment upon her intended journey. 

“Impossible! I told them all I shouldn’t dance any 
more.” 

“Oh, your partners are all in the supper room, I dare 
say. The dancing men go in last. Hark! it’s the Myoso- 
tis. Just one turn — only one.” 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


79 


He had risen from his low seat, and she rose involuntarily 
at the sound of the opening bars. He put his arm round 
her gently, and drew her into the ballroom, waltzing slowly 
as they went, and then with the sudden impetus of an enthu- 
siastic dancer he was whirling her round the room, and she 
knew nothing, cared for nothing, in the confusion of light 
and melody. 

“Think of me sometimes when you are in India!” he 
whispered, with his lips almost touching her forehead. 

She did not resent that whisper. Already, within a 
dozen hours of his first offense, she had grown accustomed 
to his words of love. It seemed to her as if they had loved 
each other for years — had loved and had despaired long ago 
in some dim half-remembered past. A passion of this kind 
is like a dream, in which an instant gives the impression of 
half a lifetime, of long memories and old habit. 

The room was much clearer now. 

“Is it very late?” asked Isola. 

“About four.” 

“So late — and I told the flyman half-past two. It is 
dreadful. Let us stop, please.” 

He obeyed, and went with her toward the cloakroom. 
The seats were nearly empty now where the matrons had 
sat in their velvet and brocade, a gorgeous background to 
the clouds of tulle and sylph-like figures of the dancers. 
Mrs. Baynham was nowhere to be seen, and the diminished 
bundles of tabby-cat cloaks and Shetland shawls in the 
cloakroom indicated that a good many people had left. 
Isola put on her fur-lined mantle hurriedly, and went out 
into the hall, where Lostwithiel had gone to look for her 
carriage. 

People were going away very fast, and through the open 
doorway there was a sound of voices and wheels; but, in 
spite of footmen, constables, and hangers-on, there seemed 


8o 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER . 


a prodigious difficulty in getting any particular carriage to 
the door. 

It was a mild, misty night, and the moon, which had been 
counted on for the return home, was hidden behind a mass 
of black clouds — or, in the expressive phraseology of one of 
the foxhunters, had gone to ground. Mrs. Disney waited 
near the door while Lostwithiel searched for her fly. There 
were several departures of other muffled figures, features 
undistinguishable behind the Shetland w r raps, or furry 
hoods, as the men hustled their womenkind into the car- 
riages. It seemed an age to Isola, waiting there alone in 
the corridor, and seeing no mortal whom she knew among 
those passers-by, before Lostwithiel came, hurried and 
breathless, to say that her carriage was just coming up 
to the door. 

“Wrap your shawl round your head,” he said quickly, 
as he gave her his arm. “There’s a nasty damp fog — so,’’ 
muffling her, almost to blindness. “Come along.’’ 

She looked at the carriage, with its lamps shining red 
against the gray mistiness like great, fiery eyes, and then, 
glancing at the horse, she cried suddenly, “I’m afraid that’s 
the wrong fly. I think mine had a gray horse.’’ 

“No, no, it’s all right. Pray don’t loiter in this. chilling 
air. ’ ’ 

The carriage door was open, the constable standing by, 
bull’s-eye in hand, a pair of horses snorting close behind, 
another carriage coming up so close that the pole threat- 
ened destruction. There was no time for loitering. Every- 
body was in a hurry to get home. Isola stepped lightly 
into the brougham, which drove slowly off. 

“Next carriage, Mrs. Brune Prideaux,’’ roared the con- 
stable. “Mrs. Prideaux’ carriage stops all the way.’’ 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER . 


Si 


CHAPTER VI. 

“a love still burning upward.” 

It was early summer, summer in her first youth, when 
she is frivolous and capricious, laughs and weeps she knows 
not why; smiling through her tears, and never knowing her 
own mind for a week together; to-day gracious tempered 
and tropical; to-morrow east-windy and morose. In a 
word, it was June, a season of roses and rains, blue skies 
and thunder-clouds. It was June, and Martin Disney was 
looking out of the window with a keen, eager face, much 
bronzed, and somewhat haggard, after a fatiguing campaign, 
looking out across the vales and woods of his native county, 
as the Penzance train sped along the high-level line betwixt 
Plymouth and Par. Those keen gray eyes of his, accus- 
tomed to searching out far-off objects, looked as if they 
could pierce through the green heart of the Cornish valleys 
to the sheltered little harbor of Fowey and the blue sea that 
opened wide to the far-off west. 

His labors were over and he was going to take his rest, 
going to hang up his sword, that sword which had done 
such ^good work, or to transform it into a reaping hook. 
He was Colonel Disney now, had given the state his best 
service, and now, in the very prime and vigor of his man- 
hood, the state had done with him, and he was free to do 
what he listed with the maturer half of his life. He would 
have been very sorry to retire from active service had it not 
been for that tender tie, which gave such sweetness to the 
thought of retirement and tranquil days. He was going 
home. The word thrilled him like music ; home to his fair 
young wife, his chosen one, his domestic divinity. He had 
not left off wondering how it had ever come to pass that so 
young and fair a creature could care for him. 


82 


ALL ALONG THE RLVER. 


“It isn’t as if I were one of your accomplished fellows,” 
he said to himself, “able to sing, or play the flute, or paint 
in water colors. Except a very earnest love of a few good 
books, I have no culture. How can any girl in the present 
day care for a man without culture? I could never appre- 
ciate Keats, for instance; and not to appreciate Keats is to 
be an outsider in literature.” 

Yet, in spite of his seven and forty years, in spite of his 
deficiences, his homeliness, that young heart had gone out 
to him. She loved him, and his lot was full. There was 
nothing more upon God’s earth that he could desire, were 
it not a miracle, and that the mother he had so fondly loved 
might be given back to him, to share his happiness, to make 
the third in a Trinity of trusting love. Since that could 
not be, there was nothing left for him to yearn for. 

The beating of his heart quickened almost unbearably 
as the train drew near Par. Isola would meet him at the 
junction, perhaps. He had not announced the actual hour 
of his arrival, for matters had been a little uncertain when 
he wrote yesterday, and he had not cared to telegraph this 
morning before he left Paddington. Yet she would know 
that this was the only likely train for him to choose; and 
she would be at the junction, he thought, smiling h$r glad 
welcome, a fair young face, rosy in the sunset; for it was 
evening as he drew near the end of his journey. 

No; there was nobody he knew at the junction. He 
walked up and down the platform, and stared about him in 
rather a forlorn way during the few minutes before the 
starting of the train for Fowey. She had not come to 
anticipate their meeting by an hour or so, as he had hoped, 
as he had felt almost certain, she would come. 

It was more natural that she should wait and receive him 
at the Angler’s Rest, he told himself, sitting in the corner 
of the railway carriage presently, in a train of three coaches, 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


*3 


steaming through the pretty picturesque country between 
Par and Fowey. In the colder light of reason it seemed 
preposterous to have expected to see her at the junction. 
She would like to welcome him amid her own surroundings, 
in the home to which she had doubtless given those little 
beautifying touches in honor of his coming, which are such 
delight to women, and which sometimes pass altogether 
unobserved by that pachydermatous animal, man. How 
slowly the engine moved along that little bit of line. Mar- 
tin Disney sat with his face to the wind, and sn.uffed the 
sea breeze as if it had been the odor of home. He thought 
of Ulysses, and his return from distant lands. Would 
Tim, the fox terrier, know him? and Shah, the Persian cat? 
Perhaps not. Tim was no Argus; vastly affectionate and 
demonstrative, but not a dog to expire at one’s feet, in the 
rapture of his master’s return. Penelope would know 
him, and welcome him. That was enough for this modern 
Ulysses, who had no reason to disguise himself in re-enter- 
ing his home — who had no fear of rival suitors, or inter- 
lopers of any kind. Penelope would welcome him, and 
trusty Tabitha. He thought of the old servant’s honest 
face with delight. She was something left to him out of 
boyhood and youth. He felt like a young man when he 
talked to her. She was the one strong link betwixt the 
present and the past. She was his memory embodied. 
He could refer to her as to a dictionary of days long gone. 
When did we do such and such a thing — or go to such a 
place — what was the name of the bay horse I bought at 
Plympton? Where did my mother pick up the Sheraton 
secretaire? Tabitha could answer all such trivial questions: 
and Tabitha could talk to him for hours of his mother’s 
words and ways — of the things that were only history. 

At last! The train crept into the little station, nestling 
on the edge of a wood, and there was Fowey, homely, 


8 4 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


friendly little Fowey, so strange and yet so familiar; strange 
to eyes that had so lately looked upon the cities of the East; 
familiar to the man who had been reared in the neighbor- 
hood, whose first impressions of God’s earth had stamped 
harbor and hills upon his brain, like an indelible picture. 
There was Masters’ fly, an eminently respectable vehicle 
that never touted for chance passengers, waiting for him. 
He was expected, evidently. 

“Did Mrs. Disney send you?’’ he asked the driver. 

“Yes, sir.’’ 

How thoughtful of the young wife, who might be forgiven 
if she had left such a small duty unfulfilled. Yet he would 
have liked to see her sweet self at the station — only, as he 
had argued with himself just now, it would have discounted 
the home welcome. It would have been an anti-climax. 

Dearly as he loved that home river, and those fertile 
hills, and beautiful as they were after their kind, they could 
but seem small and tame to eyes that had looked upon the 
glories of the East. Disney contemplated the scene with a 
touch of sad surprise, wondering at this miniature loveli- 
ness; recalling the day when those steep hillsides, where the 
red cattle were grazing in the mists of eventide, had seemed 
grand in his sight. Now they had a kind of pitiful pretti- 
ness. His heart yearned toward them with compassion for 
their insignificance. 

For nearly two years he had been moving about with his 
company in the land of jungle and mountain, and in that 
vast tableland through which the Salween River runs down 
to the Gulf of Martaban; and after those wider horizons, 
he found himself in a narrow road, shut in by grassy hills, 
and hugging the margin of a silver thread that called itself 
a river. 

There is always a tinge of melancholy in that hour after 
sundown ; and Martin Disney’s heart saddened a little as 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


85 


he looked at the quiet river, and the shadows on the hillside 
— that pale mistiness of summer evening which gives a 
ghostly touch to all things, as if it were a brief revelation of 
a spirit world. It is an hour at which even a strong man's 
heart is apt to sink with a vague sense of fear. 

The fly drew up at the little wooden gate between high 
hedges of escalonia, with glossy leaves and bright red blos- 
som. A slender figure in a white gown was visible on the 
threshold as Disney sprang out of the fly ; and, while the 
flyman was lifting down the luggage, that airy form flitted 
across the lawn, and Colonel Disney’s wife was standing 
shyly within the open gate, almost as if she had come out to 
receive a stranger. 

He could not clasp her to his breast before a flyman; but 
he seized both her hands, gripped them convulsively, and 
then led her toward the house, leaving Masters’ man to deal 
as he pleased with portmanteaus and hat box, gun case and 
umbrella case, dispatch box and other tackle; to leave them 
out in the lane to the dews and the nightbirds, if he so 
listed. Martin Disney had no consciousness of anything in 
this world except the woman by his side. 

“My darling, my darling!’’ he ejaculated, in a choked 
voice, “how I have longed for this hour, with a longing that 
has been almost madness.’’ 

And then he saw for the first time that her face was as 
white as her gown. Was it the twilight that made her look 
so pale? Could he wonder if the emotion of this supreme 
moment blanched that young cheek, when he, soldier and 
wayfarer upon the world’s roughest roads, felt like a child, 
striving to hold back his tears. 

Lamps were burning in dining room and drawing room. 
He saw the table laid for dinner through the open door as 
he and Isola passed by; but the idea of eating and drinking 
seemed very far off just now. They went into the drawing 


86 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


room together, where a solitary lamp was shining upon a 
table crowded with flowers, and where the scents of the 
garden came in through the open window. Here he satis- 
fied the longing of his hungry heart, and took that fragile 
form in his arms, and kissed the pale, cold lips. She lay 
upon his breast unresistingly; helpless, unresponsive, like 
a dead thing. 

“Isola, have you forgotten that you once loved me?” 

“Forgotten ! No, no, no. There is no one in the world 
so good and true as you are. I love you with all my heart 
and soul.” 

Her face was hidden on his breast, but she lifted up her 
arms and clasped them round his neck. He seated himself 
in his accustomed chair — it was standing where it had 
always stood before he went away — and took her upon his 
knee, as if she had been a child. Then a great storm of 
sobs suddenly burst from throat and bosom, a flood of tears 
streamed upon his breast, and he felt her arms trembling as 
they clasped his neck. 

“My own dear love,” he murmured gently, “one would 
almost think you were sorry I have come back.” 

She could not answer him at first for her sobs, but she 
shook her head, and at last the words “No, no, no,” came 
from her lips; and he kissed and calmed her with almost 
fatherly gentleness. And then they went into the dining 
room, where the soup tureen was waiting for them on the 
sideboard, with a neat little parlor maid — not Susan, but 
another — ready to minister to them. 

The table had been decorated by Isola’ s own hands. 
Dark crimson roses were lying on the fair white damask; 
one tall glass stood in the center with three slim golden 
lilies, pale and heavy-headed, which filled the room with 
perfume. These came from one of the hothouses at Glen- 
averil whence good-natured Mrs. Crowther had sent a 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


S7 


basket of exotics in honor of the colonel’s return. The 
lamplight, the flowers, the pretty old Wedgewood service of 
creamy white and dull brown made up a feast for Martin 
Disney’s eye, after a life spent mostly under canvas. He 
looked from the gayly adorned table to the face beside him, 
pallid and pinched, despite its sweetness. 

“My dear one, you are looking very ill,’’ he said with a 
an anxious air. 

“What an ungallant speech,’’ she answered, smiling at 
him with unexpected gayety. “I have been fretting at your 
long, long absence, and you reproach me for my deteri- 
orated appearance. Never mind, Martin, you will see how 
rosy and bright I shall get now our parting has come to an 
end.’’ 

“Yes, love, we must coax the roses back to your cheeks. 
I must have a good mount ready for you when the cubbing 
begins, and a few morning gallops will soon make a change 
in my fragile wife’s appearance. And I’ll charter a yacht, 
and steep you in ozone.’’ 

“Oh, one gets enough of that on shore, there is no need 
to go further.’’ 

“But I thought you adored yachting? It was one of 
our grand schemes for the future, to hire a modest little 
yawl and go round the coast to Clovelly. Have you for- 
gotten?’’ 

“No, no; only I don’t want you to waste your money — 
and, if we start a bigger stable ’’ 

“Ah, you don’t know what a Croesus I have become. 
You needn’t be afraid of ruining me. My poor lonely little 
wife. Why didn’t you send for Allegra?’’ 

“She wouldn’t have been of any good to me. She is all 
that is sweet and lovable, and she is your sister ; but she 
wouldn’t have filled your vacant place. I should have only 
felt lonelier for having to talk every day, and pretend a kind 


88 


ALL ALONG THE ELVER. 


of happiness. Being alone, I could bury myself in a book, 
and forget everything, sometimes ” 

“This soup doesn’t look up to Tabitha’s old form. Do 
you know that among other delights of this earthly paradise 
I have been looking forward to Tabitha’s little dinners. I 
don’t believe there is a chef in Paris who can cook so well 
as that self-taught genius, who ripened into perfection by a 
process of gradual evolution, from the early days when my 
mother discovered that nobody could make arrowroot or 
cook a mutton cutlet as well as Tabitha. By the by, why 
has not that good soul shown herself? I thought she 
would have disputed with you for my first kiss.’’ 

While he ran on in this fashion, Isola sat looking down 
at the tablecloth, pallid no longer, but crimson. 

“Tabitha has gone,’’ she said abruptly. 

“Tabitha gone — for a holiday?’’ 

“No, she has left me altogether.’’ 

“Left you — altogether!’’ exclaimed Disney, with the tone 
of a man who could scarcely believe in his own sense of 
hearing, so astounding was the statement that met his ears. 
“Tabitha, my mother’s faithful old servant, who was like 
my own flesh and blood! What in God’s name made her 
leave you? Did you quarrel with her?’’ 

He asked the question almost sternly. For the first time 
in his life he was angry with this dear, fragile creature, the 
idol of his heart. He had loved Tabitha as servants are 
not often loved. He had left his young wife in her charge, 
desiring no better custodian, full of faith in Tabitha’s ability 
both to protect and counsel her girlish mistress. 

“No, no; we did not quarrel. I liked Tabitha very 
much. I was almost as fond of her as you yourself could 
be.’’ 

“And yet you dismissed her,’’ Disney retorted bitterly. 
“She was not smart enough for you perhaps. Those 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


89 


Crovvther people may have put it into your head that she 
was old-fashioned — that you could never have a modish 
household with such a humdrum old person at the head of 
it. Was that your motive?” 

“O Martin, how can you think me so frivolous. I hate 
smartness and pretension as much as you do. No, I should 
never have dismissed Tabitha. She left me of her own 
accord.” 

“Why?” 

“She wanted rest. She was too old for service, she told 
me. I tried to keep her. I humiliated myself so far as to 
beg her to stay with me” — the tears came into her eyes at 
the mere memory of that humiliation — “but she had made 
up her mind. She woul<J not give way.” 

“Where did she go?” 

“To Falmouth — to live with her sister, a shoemaker’s 
widow. They let lodgings, I believe.” 

“She must have gone mad. A lodging house must be 
harder work than anything she had to do here.” 

“Yes, I think it must.” 

“When did she go?” 

“At the beginning of the year — in January.” 

“She left you six months ago, and in all that time you 
never told me she was gone.” 

“I did not want you to know, for fear you should be 
worried or vexed.” 

“I should have been both; but you ought to have told 
me. I had a right to know. I left you in her charge, 
Isola. You are much too young and too pretty to be living 
alone without some kind of dragon — and I knew Tabitha 
would be a very gentle dragon — a good, motherly soul, able 
to wait upon you and look after your health, and yet grim 
enough to keep marauders off the premises. Indeed, my 
pet, you should have let me know of her departure without 


90 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


an hour’s delay. She was very wrong to go. It was a 
breach of faith I could never have expected.” 

“Pray don’t be angry with her, Martin.” 

“But I am angry. I have a right to be angry. I’ll go 
to Falmouth to-morrow, and have it out with her.” 

“No, no, pray don’t. We parted good friends. She can 
say nothing to you more than she said to me. Pray don’t 
let there be any bad blood between you. What could be 
gained by your going? To-morrow, too — our very first 
day together!” 

“Well, it shall not be till the day after; but go I must. 
To-morrow I will revel in the delights of home, and my 
dear one’s society. To-morrow I will be drunken with joy. 
The day after will do for Tabitha. ” 

“I think it is making a great deal too much of her to go 
to Falmouth on purpose to see her,” said Isola with a grain 
of pettishness; and then, after a pause, during which the 
colonel had been trying to appease a sharp appetite with the 
muscular leg of an elderly fowl, she said nervously: 

‘‘I’m afraid you are not enjoying your dinner.” 

‘‘What do I care for dinner on such a night as this; but, 
as a matter of plain truth, I must say that your new cook is 
a very bad substitute for Tabitha. Her soup was watery, 
her fish was greasy, her poultry is hardly eatable. If she 
has talents in any other line she is keeping them in reserve 
for another day. It may be that she excels in made dishes 
— a misfortune for me, as I never eat them.” 

“I had a splendid character with her,” said Isola pite- 
ously, with the helpless feeling of a housewife who sees 
before her a dark prospect of bad dinners and marital 
grumblings, or the agonizing wrench involved in changing 
her cook. 

‘‘Yes, my love, people generally give splendid characters 
to servants they want to get rid of,” answered Disney dryly. 


ALL ALONG TILE RIVER. 


9 * 


These wedded lovers went out very early next morning 
to explore the gardens and meadows; Isola eager to point 
out various small improvements which she had made with 
the help of the old gardener, who would have plunged his 
hand and arm into a fiery furnace to procure plant or flower 
which his young mistress desired. Sweet words and sweet 
looks go very far in this world. They are a mighty revenue, 
and will often do their owner as good service as gold and 
silver. 

Isola had worked in the garden with her own hands ever 
since the beginning of spring, the first tender opening of 
Earth’s heavy eyelids, her first pale smile of snowdrops, her 
broad laughter of daffodils, her joyous peal of bluebells, 
and riotous mirth of May blossom. She had toiled in the 
sweat of her brow so that the garden might be beautiful at 
midsummer; for early in March there had come a letter full 
of rejoicing from that distant hill kingdom, and she knew 
that the year of absence to which she had looked so hope- 
lessly last November was commuted to half a year. 

Martin Disney was full of admiration for his wife’s 
improvements. The old-fashioned borders were brimming 
over with old-world flowers; the shrubberies had grown out 
of knowledge; the escalonia hedge by the kitchen garden 
was a thing to wonder at. 

“I remember the hedge at Tregenna Castle before that 
good old place was an inn,” said Martin; and then, having 
admired everything, he walked up and down the grass 
beside the laurel hedge with his wife — while the Satan-sent 
cook was spoiling the food that bounteous Nature had pro- 
vided for man’s enjoyment — and questioned her about the 
life she had been leading in his absence. 

“You used to write me such good letters, dearest, so full . 
of detail that I knew exactly how your days were spent, and 
could picture every hour of your life; but of late your 


9 2 


ALL ALONG THE RLVER. 


descriptive powers have flagged. I dare say you got tired 
of writing long letters to a dull old fellow in India, who 
could never write you a clever letter in reply. It must 
have seemed a one-sided business?” 

“Indeed, no, dear. Your letters had only one fault. 
They were never half long enough; but I knew how busy 
you were, and I thought it was so good of you never to miss 
a mail.” 

“Good of me! Had there been twice as many mails I 
would not have willingly missed one. But there is no 
doubt your letters fell off after last autumn. They were 
sweet, and ever welcome to me — but they told me very little. ’ ’ 

“There was very little to tell.” 

“Ah, but in the old days you used to make it seem so 
much. You had such a delightful way of describing trifling 
events. I thought at one time you had the makings of a 
Jane Austen; but afterward I began to fear you must be 
out of health. Your letters had a low-spirited tone. 
There were no more of those sharp little touches which 
used to make me laugh, no more of those tiny word- 
pictures, which brought the faces and figures of my old 
neighbors before me.” 

“You can hardly wonder if my spirits sank a little when 
you had been so long away. And then life seemed so 
deathlike in its monotony. There were days when I felt I 
might just as well have been dead. There could be very 
little difference between lying under the earth and crawling 
listlessly on the top of it.” 

“You were too much alone, Isola,” he answered, dis- 
tressed at this revelation. “You ought to have sent for 
Allegra. I begged you to do so, if you felt dull.” 

“Do you think she could have cured my dullness?” 
exclaimed his wife impatiently. “I think life would have 
seemed still more tiresome if I had been obliged to talk 


ALL ALONG THE EL FEE. 


93 


when there was nothing to talk about, and to smile when I 
felt inclined to cry.” 

“Ah, you don’t know what a companion Allegra is — 
brimming over with fun ! She knows her Dickens by heart; 
and I never met with anybody who appreciated him as 
intensely as she does.” 

“I don’t care about Dickens.” 

“Don’t — care — about Dickens!” 

He echoed her words as if almost paralyzed by horror. 

“Not as I used to care. One’s taste changes as life goes 
on. Lately I have read nothing but Shakspere, and Keats, 
and Shelley.” 

“Very well in their way, but not half cheery enough for 
a lonely little woman beside the Fowey River. You ought 
to have had Allegra. It would have been better for you 
and better for her. She is tired of the art school; and the 
other pupils are tired of her. They are very fond of her; 
but she has done all the work twice over, and there is noth- 
ing more for her to do, unless we meant her to enter the 
Royal Academy and go in seriously for art, Mrs. Meynell 
tells me. According to that lady’s account my sister must 
be an Admirable Crichton in petticoats.” 

“I have no doubt she is very clever and very nice; but, 
as I could not have you, I preferred being alone,” an- 
swered Isola. 

She was walking slowly by his side along the closely 
shaven grass, and every now and then she stretched out a 
hand that looked semitransparent, and gathered a flower at 
random, and then plucked off its petals nervously as she 
walked on. Her eyelids were lowered, and her lips were 
tightly set. Martin could but think there was a vein of 
obstinacy in this bewitching wife of his — a gentle resistance 
which would tend to make him her slave rather than her 
master in the days to come. He saw with pain that her 


94 


ALL ALOJVG THE RLVER. 


cheeks were hollow and pinched, and that her delicate com- 
plexion had a sickly whiteness. She had fretted evidently 
in those long months of solitude, and it would take time to 
bring back the color and gayety to her face. As for dull- 
ness, well, no doubt Fowey was ever so much duller than 
Dinan, where there were officers and tennis parties and 
afternoon tea drinkings, and a going and coming of tourists 
all the summer through, and saints’ days, and processions, 
and f£tes and illuminations in the market square, beneath 
the statue of Duguesclin. 

“And how did the world use you, Isola?’’ he asked pres- 
ently. “Was everybody kind?’’ 

“Oh, yes, people were very kind; especially Mrs. Bayn- 
ham and Mrs. Crowther. They sent me ever so many 
invitations, and wanted me to go on their day every week. 

“And I hope you accepted their invitations.’’ 

“I went to Mrs. Baynham’s sometimes on her day; but 
I didn’t care about going to Glenaveril. It is all too grand 
and too fine — and I don’t like Mr. Crowther.’’ 

“He was always courteous to you, I hope.’’ 

“Oh, yes, he was particularly courteous. I have no 
reason for disliking him. He is my Dr. Fell — the reason 
why I cannot tell, but I would walk a mile to avoid meet- 
ing him.’’ 

“Then we will not cultivate social relations with Glen- 
averil. We will visit at no house where my dearest does not 
feel happy and at ease. And as for the finery, I agree with 
you, there is something too much of it. I like powder and 
plush when the people they serve are to the manner born, 
and when powder and plush seem more natural than parlor- 
maids; but I don’t care for the solemn stateliness of a big 
establishment when it has been newly set up — at least, not 
by such folks as the Crowthers. There are some men to 
whom such surroundings seem natural, even though fortune 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 95 

has come late in life. Is the beautiful Belinda married 
yet?” 

“No. I do not think she is as much as engaged.” 

“I thought Lostwithiel would have married her. She 
would have been a grand catch for him, and no doubt she 
would have snapped at a coronet, even without strawberry 
leaves. But I hear he is in South America orchid hunting. 
He was always a capricious individual. There goes the 
gong for breakfast. I hope your cook can fry a rasher and 
boil an egg better than she can dress a dinner.” 

They went in together to the pretty dining room so 
bright with books and flowers, and a life-sized girlish head 
in water colors, by Dobson, R. A., over the chimney-piece, 
and Venetian glass here and there, that all characteristics 
of the ordinary eating room were effaced, and only a sense 
of homeliness and artistic surroundings was left. Isola had 
been down at six, and her own hands had given the finish- 
ing touches to the room, and the flowers were of that morn- 
ing’s gathering, and had the dew and the perfume of 
morning upon them. The room was so pretty, and Isola 
was so much prettier than the room, that a husband would 
have been of very dull clay had he troubled himself about 
the handiwork of the cook. Martin Disney was not made 
of dull clay, and he ate an overdone rasher and a hard- 
boiled egg without a murmur, and then set out for a long 
ramble with Isola. 

They went up to the hill upon whose landward slope 
stood Lostwithiel’s old gray manor house, with its gardens 
and park. Isola had not been there since that never-to-be- 
forgotten November evening when she met Lostwithiel in 
the rain. She had avoided the spot from that time forward, 
though she had no especial reason for avoidance, since there 
was no one there but Mrs. Mayne and her underlings. 
Lostwithiel and the Vendetta had sailed away into space 


9 6 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


directly after the hunt ball, and little had been heard of him 
save that dim rumor of orchid hunting on the shores of the 
Amazon, which had filtered from the society papers down to 
Fowey, via the Western Daily Mercury. 

Isola and her husband lingered for a long time upon the 
hilltop, he reveling in the familiar beauty of that magnificent 
stretch of cliff and sea, out to the dim slate color of the 
Dodman Point, bay beyond bay, curving away toward Fal- 
mouth and the Lizard — while between that hill and the sea 
lay a world of fertile meadows and yellow corn, of hill and 
hollow, wood and common, copse and garden, a rich and 
smiling country, a land of -summer flowers and plenteous 
growth. 

“I never stand upon this hill without feeling proud of 
being a Cornishman,” said Disney; “and yet, after all, it is 
a foolish thing to be proud of an accident. My little Bre- 
ton girl might as well be proud of being a countrywoman of 
Duguesclin’s.” 

“Perhaps if I had been born anywhere else I should not 
have been so ready to fall in love with a soldier,” answered 
Isola. “I was brought up to think a knight and a warrior 
the one ideal; and so I was fascinated by the first soldier 
who took any notice of me.” 

“But were you really fascinated, and were you really in 
love,” exclaimed Disney, infinitely delighted at this little 
speech of his wife’s, “in love with a battered campaigner of 
five and forty — or did you just think you liked me a little 
bit, only because you wanted to get away from Dinan?” 

“I really — really — really loved you,” she answered softly, 
looking up at him with eyes dimmed by tears, as he drew 
her nearer to him in his gladness. “I was not tired of 
Dinan — or my life there — and my heart went out to you at 
once, because you were good and noble, and seemed to 
care for me.” 


ALL ALONG THE ELVER. 


97 


“There was no seeming in it, Isola. I was knocked over 
at once, like a pigeon out of a trap. I had been in love 
with you three weeks — three centuries it seemed — before I 
could screw up my courage so far as to think of proposing 
for you. And then if Hazelrigg hadn’t helped me with 
your father, I don’t suppose I should ever have broken the 
ice. But when he, the colonel, showed himself so frank 
and willing, and the way was all made smooth for me from 
a domestic point of view; and, when I saw that kind little 
look in your eyes, and the shy little smile — yes, you are 
smiling so now — I took heart of grace, and stormed the 
citadel. Do you remember the evening I asked you to be 
my wife, Isola; that starlit night when I had been dining 
with your people, and you and Gwendoline and Hazelrigg 
and I went out upon the terrace to look at the stars, and 
the river, and the twinkling lights of the boats down by the 
quay, and the diligence driving over the bridge, deep, deep 
down in the valley below us? Do you remember how I 
lured you away from the other two, and how we stood 
under the vine leaves in the berceau, and I found the words 
somehow — feeblest, stupidest words, I’m afraid — to make 
you know that all the happiness of my life to come de- 
pended upon winning you for my wife?’’ 

.-“I remember as if it were last night,’’ she answered 
gravely. “But, oh, how long ago it seems!’’ 

“Why do you sigh as you say that?’’ 

“Oh, one always sighs for the past! How can one help 
feeling sorry that it should be gone — so much of our lives 
and of ourselves gone forever.’’ 

“Oh, but when the future is so fair, when the present is 
so happy, there should be no more sighing. It is an offense 
against the Great Father of all, who has been so good 
to us.’’ 

She did not answer, and they remained silent for some 


9 8 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


minutes, she seated on a bank covered with heather and 
wild flowers, he stretched on the short, sweet turf at her 
feet. The heather had not begun to show its purple bloom, 
but there was the gold of the gorse, and the brightness of 
innumerable wild flowers around and about them as they 
basked in the sunshine. 

“Dearest, do you believe in dreams?” Disney asked 
suddenly. 

“Sometimes — not much — dreams are often dreadful,” she 
answered with a startled air. 

“I don’t believe in them a bit,” he said, lifting himself 
into a sitting position, and addressing himself to her with 
increasing earnestness, “not now that I have you here safe 
within reach of my hand — so,” taking her hand in his and 
keeping it clasped in both his own; “but I had a dream 
about you in India, which kept me in a fever of anxiety for 
nearly a month. I should have telegraphed to ask if all 
was right with you, only I told myself that if anything was 
wrong Tabitha would instantly telegraph to me. I made 
her promise that before I left England. It was almost my 
last injunction. And to think that she left you half a year 
ago, and that anything might have happened to you after 
that, and that there was no one — no one ” 

“But, you see, I am quite safe. There was no bad news 
to send you. Besides, if I had been ill, or anything had 
gone wrong, there was Mrs. Baynham. She had been like 
a mother to me. I am so sorry you feel vexed about 
Tabitha’s leaving me.” 

“Doubly vexed, dear, because you left me in ignorance 
of the fact.” 

“Pray don’t be angry with me, Martin, so soon,” she 
pleaded meekly. 

“Angry, no. I am not angry. I don’t know how to be 
angry with you, Isola; but I can’t help being distressed. 


ALL ALONG THE RLVER. 


99 


However, let the past be past. I shall never leave you to 
the care of strangers again till I die.” 

Her only answer was to bend her head down to kiss the 
hands that clasped her own. 

“Tell me about your dream,” she said, after a pause, 
with her forehead still resting on his hands, and her face 
hidden. “Was it something very awful?” 

“It was all confusion — a wild chaos — a nightmare of 
strange sounds and sensations — tempest, fire, earthquake — 
I know not what— but it meant deadly danger for you — 
death perhaps. I saw you hanging in space — a white figure, 
with piteous, pain-wrought face. Never have I seen you 
look like that— your eyes staring wildly as if they were look- 
ing at death; your features drawn and rigid, and through 
all the confusion, and noise, and ceaseless movement, I was 
trying to follow you — trying, but impotently, to save you. 
The white figure was always before me — far off — yet visible 
every now and then across the darkness of a world where 
everything was shapeless and confused. But worst of all 
was that every now and then a black wall rose up between 
your distant figure and the stony, difficult path that I was 
treading — a wall of gigantic thickness and height. A wall 
against which I flung myself, mad with rage and despair, 
trying to tear the stones asunder with my hands, till the 
blood ran in streams from my torn fingers. It was a dream 
that seemed to last through a long night, holding in it the 
memory of a painful past; yet I suppose it was like other 
dreams — momentary, for I had heard three o’clock strike 
before I fell asleep, and when I sounded my repeater it was 
only a quarter past.” 

‘‘Rather a meaningless dream,” she said, in a sleepy 
voice, without looking up. “I don’t think it ought to have 
alarmed you.” 

‘‘Ah, it sounds meaningless to you; but to me it was full 


TOO 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


of meaning. The idea of danger to you was so intense — so 
real. The cold sweat of deadly fear was on my face when 
I awoke, and it was some minutes before I could get my 
senses clear of that ghastly horror, before I could realize 
where I was, and that the thing I had seen was a dream. 
That hideous wall seemed still in front of me, and I had 
still the feeling that you were on the other side of it, in 
ever-increasing peril . ” 

“It was a horrid dream, certainly; but, you see, it had 
no meaning.” 

“There were such strange things mixed up in it — thun- 
der and lightning, a roaring wind, a sound of rushing 
waters; and then, amid wind and thunder, there rose the 
black stony barrier that shut out everything.” 

“Was it long ago that you dreamed this horrid dream?” 

“Yes, a long while. It was just before Christmas. I 
made a note of the dream in my journal — wrote it down in 
fear and trembling, lest there should be some kind of ful- 
fillment. But then came your letter — written nearly a fort- 
night after Christmas, with your description of the ball — 
and I laughed at my folly in brooding so long upon that 
phantasmal picture. I remember, by the way, it was two or 
three nights after your ball that I dreamt my dream, while 
you no doubt were sleeping a little sounder than usual after 
your gayeties.” 

“Dreams are very strange,” said Isola absently. “I 
wonder whether there is any good in them to counterbalance 
so much pain.” 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


IOI 


CHAPTER VII. 

“look through mine eyes with thine, true wife.” 

There were steamers plying between Fowey and Fal- 
mouth in this summer weather, and Colonel Disney sug- 
gested next morning that Isola should go with him on his 
journey in search of Tabitha. They would go by water and 
return in the afternoon by rail. The morning was lovely, 
and the trip round the coast would be delightful. 

“I don’t want to see Tabitha,” Isola answered, with a 
touch of impatience. “If you are so bent upon seeing her 
I had rather you went alone.” 

“But I had rather not spend a whole day away from you. 
As for Tabitha, a visit of ten minutes will be quite enough 
for me. I have brought her a Rhampoor Chuddah — a warm 
red one. I have only to make her my little gift, and to say 
a few words — without any anger — about her breach of faith.” 

“It was not really a breach of faith. I gave her full per- 
mission to go. I was getting just a little tired of her fussi- 
ness. She was not my old servant, you know, Martin. I 
had not been used to her all my life, as you have.” 

‘ ‘Ah, but she is so good — such a thoroughly good woman. ” 

“Yes, she is good, no doubt.” 

“Well, we’ll go to Falmouth together, and you can stop 
at the Green Bank, where we can lunch, while I go and find 
Tabitha. You know her address, I suppose?” 

“Yes. She lives at No. 5 Crown Terrace, overlooking 
the harbor.” 

These conversations took place in the garden, where they 
breakfasted under a square striped awning, an apology for 
a tent, set up on the lawn by the river. A badly cooked 
breakfast seemed less offensive in the garden, where the 
summer air and the perfume of the roses eked out the meal. 


102 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


After breakfast Disney called his wife to the drawing room, 
where he had brought his spoil from the East, and laid his 
offerings, as it were, at the feet of his idol. 

“See, love, here is a shawl which you can use as a couvre- 
pied,” he said, flinging a fine cashmere over a chair, “since 
Fashion decrees that women shall wear shawls no more. *■ 
And here are some ivory chessmen to assist you in puzzling 
your brains over the game of Eastern antiquity; and here 
are vases and things for odd corners. And I have brought 
you a carved Persian screen, and some Peshawur curtains 
for your doorways, and a lamp from Cairo, to make your 
drawing room a little more fantastically pretty. I know 
you love these things.” 

She was enraptured with his gifts. Her face lighted up 
like a child at sight of them, and she ran from one to the 
other in a confused gladness, scarcely able to look at one 
thing at a time. 

“They will make the room too lovely,” she cried; “and 
they will tell everybody of your far away travels. I can 
never thank you half enough for all these treasures.” 

“Love me a little, and that will be more than enough.” 

“A little. Ah, Martin, I love you so much.” 

“Then why do you sigh as you say it? There need be no 
sighing in our love now. I never shall leave you again.” 

He caught her to his breast as he spoke, and kissed the 
pale, sweet face, with a kind of defiant rapture, as if he 
challenged Fate to do him any further evil. The pain of 
separation from that fair young wife had been so keen an 
agony that there was a touch of savage exultancy in the joy 
of reunion — some such fierce gladness as a knight-crusader 
njight have felt in days of old, coming back to his beloved 
after years of war and travel. 

God help the crusader’s wife of those rough days if she 
had turned from the path of virtue during his exile. There 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


103 


would be a short shrift and a bloody shroud for such a 
sinner. 

They walked into Fowey by that pathway which Isola 
had trodden so often in the year that was gone — not always 
alone. The pleasure steamer was waiting in the little haven, 
where the two rivers part under the cloven hills. Out sea- 
ward the air blew fresh and free, and the spray was dashing 
up against the rocks, and Polruan’s gray roofs were wrapped 
in morning shadows, while Fowey laughed in the sunshine. 

That water journey to Falmouth was delicious upon such 
a morning, and it needed not a very doubtful brass band of 
three and a boy, blaring out the new and popular music-hall 
song of the year before last, to enliven the voyage. Those 
arable lands yonder, undulating with every curve of the 
ever-varying coast line, the emerald green of young corn 
shining in the sunlight, copse and spinny here and there in 
the clefts and hollows, the Gribbin Head standing up stony 
and grim on the crest of the topmost hill, and, anon, Par 
harbor lying low upon the level sands, and then this point 
and that, till they meet the little fleet of gallant fishingboats 
sailing out from Mevagissey, like a peaceful Armada, and 
skim past the haven, and the little town and quay crowded 
at the foot of the hill, and the coastguard’s stronghold 
yonder, high up against the bright blue sky, whiter than 
any other mortal habitation ever was or will be. And so to 
Falmouth, with porpoises playing under their bows, like 
sportive dolphins, as if they carried Dionysius or Arion on 
their deck — a brief summer sail, in the keen sweet air of an 
English summer. To Martin Disney’s British nostrils that 
atmosphere seemed soul-inspiring, the very breath of life 
and gladness, after the experiences of a hot-weather 
campaign. 

And here was Falmouth, with proud Pendennis on a sunny 
height, and bay and harbor, town and hill, terrace above 


104 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


terrace, tower and steeple — the town and streets all crowded 
and clustered in the foreground, where the river winds inward 
to the heart of the land. 

The Green Bank gave them cordial welcome, and lunch- 
eon was speedily spread in a private sitting room, at a snug 
round table by a window overlooking the harbor — luncheon, 
and of the best, tongue and chicken, and salad, cherry 
pasty, junket and cream. 

Colonel Disney applied himself to the meal with a hearty 
relish. 

“There is just this one advantage in bad cooking at home 
that it makes one so thoroughly enjoy everything one gets 
abroad,” he said, laughing at his own prowess. 

“I’ll try and get abetter cook, if you like, Martin,” Isola 
said, with rather a helpless air. 

To a wife of one and twenty there seems such futility in 
worrying about a cook. 

“You couldn’t possibly get a worse. How long have you 
put up with this one?” 

“Ever since Tabitha left.” 

“Good heavens! You have been starving upon ill-cooked 
food for six months. No wonder you look thin and out of 
health.” 

“I am really very well. There is nothing the matter 
with me.” 

“Yes, yes, there is a great deal the matter. A bad cook, 
solitude, no one to watch over you and care for you. But 
that is all over now. You are eating no lunch — not even 
that superb cherry pasty. I’ll be off to find Tabitha. I 
shan’t be more than half an hour, unless Crown Terrace is 
at the extremity of Falmouth. Have you brought a book 
to read while I am away? No, foolish child. Nevermind. 
There is the county paper, and there is the harbor, with all 
its life, for you to look at.” 


ALL ALONG THE RLVER. 


io 5 

He started on his voyage of discovery, with the warm, 
comfortable shawl which he had bought for his mother’s old 
servant over his arm. It was a small disappointment amid 
the infinite delight of his home-coming ; but, when he bought 
the shawl, he had fancied himself putting it round Tabitha’s 
ample shoulders in the little housekeeper’s room at the 
Angler’s Rest, a room that was just large enough to hold a 
linen cupboard, a tiny Pembroke table, a comfortable arm- 
chair, and Tabitha, who seemed bigger than all the furni- 
ture put together. 

He was a man of warm affections, and of that constancy 
of mind and temper to which forgetfulness of old ties or 
indifference to past associations is impossible. Tabitha’s 
image was associated with all the ten derest memories of his 
youth; with his mother’s widowhood, and with her second 
marriage — a foolish marriage. At seven and thirty years of 
age she had taken to herself a second husband, some years her 
junior, in the person of George Leland, a well-meaning and 
highly intellectual curate with weak lungs, a union entered 
upon while her only son was a cadet, and which left her four 
years later again a widow, with an infant daughter, a child 
born amid sickness and sorrow, and christened at the fath- 
er’s desire Allegra, as if she had entered a world of joy. 
Through that Indian summer of his mother’s second love, 
in all the cares and griefs of her second marriage, Tabitha 
had been trusty and devoted, nursing the frail husband 
through that last year of fading life which was one long 
illness, comforting the widow, and rearing the sickly baby 
until it blossomed into a fine healthy child, whose strength 
and beauty took everyone by surprise. 

With all the joys and sorrows of his mother’s life Tabitha 
had been associated for five and thirty years of conscientious 
service; and to have lost the good soul now from his fireside 
was a positive affliction to Martin Disney. Her loss gave 


io6 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


an air of instability to his domestic life. Who would eVer 
care for his property as Tabitha had cared — Tabitha who 
had seen the china, and the pictures, and drawings collected 
piece by piece, who had seen the old family silver drop in 
by way of legacy from this and that aunt or uncle, till the 
safe was full of treasures, every one of which had its dis- 
tinct history? What would a new housekeeper care for 
General Disney’s coffee pot, for the George II. urn that 
had belonged to his uncle the Indian judge, for his grand- 
mother’s decanter stands? A modern servant would scoff at 
decanter stands; would wonder they were not melted down. 
No, rejoiced as he was to be at home once more, home 
without Tabitha Rowe would be something less than home 
to Martin Disney. 

He found Crown Terrace, a row of neat little houses high 
above the harbor on the Helston road. He had no need to 
look at the numbers on the doors. He knew Tabitha’s 
house at a glance, four or five doors off. Who else would 
have devised such pretty little window boxes, so simple and 
so artistic ; or who else would have hit upon so perfect a 
harmony of color in the flowering plants. Who else, of that 
low status, would have chosen such muslin curtains or 
draped them so gracefully. The little bow-windowed band- 
box of a house was as pretty as a Parisian toy. 

Tabitha was in the window, working with scissors and 
sponge at one of the flower boxes. Never an aphid was 
allowed to rest on Tabitha’s roses or geraniums. She gave 
a little cry of mixed alarm and delight as she saw that stal- 
wart figure come between her and the sunshine. 

“Lor’ sakes, Captain Martin, is it you?’’ she cried. 

“Yes, Tabby, it is I — and I want to know what you’ve 
got to say to me. Do you know how a deserter feels when 
he suddenly finds himself face to face with his colonel? I 
never had such a knock-down blow as when I came home 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER . 107 

the day before yesterday and found you had deserted your 
post — you whom I trusted so implicitly.” 

Tabitha looked at him dumbly — entreatingly — as if she 
was mutely supplicating him not to be angry. She took this 
reproof with an air of having thoroughly deserved it, of not 
having any plea to offer in her defense. 

“You’ll come in and sit down a bit, won’t you, Captain 
Martin?” she said deprecatingly; and then, without waiting 
for an answer, she bustled out of the parlor, and anon 
appeared at the open door. 

“Yes, of course I am coming in. I have a great deal to 
say to you — much more than can be said in the open 
street.” 

Tabitha ushered him into the little parlor; so neat, so 
cool and dainty a bower, albeit the whole of its contents 
would scarcely have realized ten pounds at an auction. 
She offered him her most luxurious easy-chair — a large 
Madeira chair, with pale chintz cushions and artistic drap- 
ing; and then, when he had seated himself, she stood before 
him like a prisoner at the bar, and with unmistakable guilt 
disturbing the broad placidity of her countenance. 

“Tabby, there is my offering from the Indies. May it 
keep you warm when you run out upon your mysterious 
errands on autumn evenings, as you used to do in my 
mother’s time. Sit down, pray; I have lots to say to you.” 

Tabitha received the comfortable gift with rapturous 
thanks. That Captain Martin should have thought of her, 
so far away, with his head full of fighting, and with death 
looking him in the face! It was too much, and the tears 
rolled down her honest cheeks as she thanked him. 

“And now, Tabitha, 1 want a candid answer to a 
straight question. Why did you leave my wife last 
January?” 

“That’s easily explained, sir. I’m getting old, and I 


108 ALL ALONG THE ELVER. 

was tired of service. Mrs. Disney was very well able to 
spare me. Perhaps she didn’t set the same value on me as 
you did. Young people like young faces about them.” 

“All that I can understand; but it didn’t exonerate you 
from your duty to me. You promised me to take care of 
my young wife.” 

“I did my best, Captain Martin, as long as I could give 
satisfaction,” faltered Tabitha, growing very pale under 
this reproof. 

“Had you any misunderstanding with Mrs. Disney? 
Did she find fault with you?” 

“Oh, no, sir. Mrs. Disney is not one to find fault. 
She’s too easy, if anything. No one could be sweeter than 
she was to me. God knows, if she had been my own 
daughter I could not have loved her better than I did.” 

Here Tabitha broke down altogether, and sobbed aloud- 

“Come, come, my good soul, don’t distress yourself,” 
cried Disney, touched by this emotion. “You loved her; 
you could not help loving her, could you? And yet you 
left her. ” 

‘ ‘I was getting tired and old, sir; and I had saved enough 
money to furnish a small house; and my sister, Mrs. David, 
being a widow without chick or child, wanted me to join 
her in a lodging house at the seaside. She’s a beautiful 
cook, is my sister, much better than ever I was. So per- 
haps I was over-persuaded; and here I am. What’s done 
cannot be undone, Captain Martin ; but if ever Mrs. Disney 
should be ill or in grief or trouble, and she should want me, 
I’ll go to her without an hour’s loss of time. I can never 
forget that she is your wife, and that she was a kind mistress 
to me.” 

Martin Disney breathed more freely after this speech. 
He had been curiously disturbed at the idea of a breach 
between his wife and the old and faithful servant. 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


109 

“Well, Tabby, I’m glad at least you and my wife are not 
ill friends,’’ he said. “I do not care for the loosening of 
old ties. And now I must be off. Mrs. Disney is waiting 
for me at the Green Bank.’’ 

Tabitha seemed a little startled on hearing that her late 
mistress was in Falmouth, but she made no remark upon 
the fact. 

“Good-by, Tabby. Stay, there’s one favor you can do 
me. Get me a good cook. The woman we have at pres- 
ent would be a blight upon the happiest home in 
Christendom.’’ 

“I’ll find you abetter one, sir. I’ll set about hunting 
for a good one this afternoon.’’ 

Martin shook hands with her on the doorstep, and she 
stood watching him till he disappeared at the turn of the 
road. She watched him with a countenance full of sorrow. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

“my frolic falcon, with bright eyes.” 

Everybody in Trelasco and in the neighborhood seemed 
glad to see Colonel Disney again. All the best people 
within a six-mile drive came bearing down upon the 
Angler’s Rest within the week that followed his return; 
and there were cozy little afternoon tea drinkings in the 
drawing room, or on the lawn, and Isola had her hands full 
in receiving her visitors. Everybody congratulated her 
upon having her hero back from the wars. 

“You ought to be very proud of your husband, Mrs. 
Disney,’’ said Vansittart Crowther, with his air of taking 
all the world under his protection. 

“I have always beei> proud of him,’’ Isola answered 
gently. “I was proud of him before the Burmese War.’’ 


I TO 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


“Your poor wife has been looking very unhappy for the 
last few months,” Mrs. Crowther said to the colonel, with 
a motherly glance at Isola. “I really had a good mind to 
write to you and beg you to hurry home if you didn’t want 
to find the poor thing far gone in a decline when you 
came back.” 

‘‘My dear Mrs. Crowther, what nonsense,” cried Isola, 
growing crimson at this motherly officiousness. ‘‘I have 
never been out of health, or in the least likely to go into a 
decline. One cannot always look like a dairymaid.” 

‘‘My dear, there’s no use talking, you looked very bad. 
Had one of my girls looked as ill I should have taken her 
off to Buxton to drink the waters without an hour’s delay.” 

That visit of the Crowthers seemed longer than any of 
the afternoon calls to Isola. The Crowthers, husband and 
wife and elder daughter, had an inquisitorial air, Isola fan- 
cied, an air of scrutinizing her house, and herself, and her 
surroundings, which was intolerable to her; although on 
Mrs. Crowther’ s part she knew the scrutiny was made in 
the utmost benevolence, and the officiousness was the out- 
come of a nature overflowing with the milk of human 
^ kindness. 

‘‘I wish you had written to me, Mrs. Crowther,” said 
Disney. ‘‘I couldn’t have come home any sooner, but I 
could have telegraphed to my sister Allegra to look after my 
wife and cheer her solitude. I was a fool not to have had 
her here all along.” 

‘‘Hadn’t I better go out of the room while you are hold- 
ing your consultation about me?” exclaimed Isola fretfully. 
‘‘It’s rather hard upon the patient to hear her case dis- 
cussed in cold blood. I am tired of declaring that I have 
not been ill, and that it is my misfortune and not my fault 
to have a pale complexion.” « 

“You were not always so pallid, my dear,” said Mrs. 


ALL ALONG TILE RIVER . 


Ill 


Crowther persistently. “You were one of the beauties of 
the hunt ball, and you had color enough that night.” 

Dr. and Mrs. Baynham came the following afternoon; 
and these two told the same story, though with less obtru- 
sive concern. 

‘‘I looked after the young lady now and then,” said the 
worthy doctor, “and as I found there was nothing radically 
wrong, I didn’t worry you with any low-spirited reports; 
but I expect to see her pick up wonderfully now you have 
come home. She didn’t take enough outdoor exercise; 
that’s where the harm was. She used to be so fond of her 
boat last year; but this year I fancy she didn’t feel herself 
up to handling the sculls. You didn’t now, did you, 
Mrs. Disney?” 

‘‘I don’t know about that, but I am ready to row to the 
Land’s End, now Martin is back,” said Isola; and those 
few words to Martin Disney seemed the sweetest he had 
heard since Colonel Manwaring’s daughter promised to be 
his wife. 

Mrs. Baynham sat on the lawn, sipping her tea, and bask- 
ing in the afternoon sunshine. 

‘‘You should have seen your wife in her wedding gown at 
the Lostwithiel dance,” she said. ‘‘You would have been 
proud of her. She didn’t want to go — refused Mrs. Crow- 
ther and me again and again. She thought it wasn’t right 
to be at any merry-making while your life was in danger.” 

“Yes, I know — I know. My tender-hearted Isola.” 

“But at last we got the better of her objections; and 
though there were a good many pretty women there, and 
though Miss Crowther, perhaps, pleased most tastes, being 
a more showy style of beauty, to my thinking there wasn’t 
one came up to Mrs. Disney.” 

“Her partners seemed of the same opinion,” put in the 


I 12 


ALL ALONG THE ELVER. 


doctor cheerily. “Why, how often did Lord Lostwithiel 
dance with you, Mrs. Disney? Oftener than with anybody 
else, I’ll be bound.” 

Mrs. Baynham nodded approvingly. 

“I was very proud of my party that evening, I can tell 
you, Colonel Disney,” she said. “It isn’t often that one 
has to chaperon three attractive young women. Do you 
know that my youngest niece, Maria, has had two offers 
since that night, Isola, and when I last heard from her she 
was on the brink of an engagement. Ah, well, I hope we 
shall have another ball next December, now that the neigh- 
borhood has begun to wake up a bit. We have been think- 
ing of getting up a water picnic this summer — just a little 
excursion to Mevagissey, and a little fishing for those who 
might care for it.” 

“Very pleasant, indeed, of you,” answered the colonel 
cheerily. “We will be there.” 

“The Crowthers are rather grand in their ideas,” said the 
doctor, “but Alicia is very keen upon all kind of sports, so 
I know she’ll want to come, whatever Belinda may say 
to it.” 

Mrs. Baynham made a wry face at the name of the elder 
sister. It was an involuntary and unconscious contortion ; 
but Belinda had tried to snub Mrs. Baynham, who never 
could forget that her father was a banker at Truro, and held 
the fortunes — the mortgages and incumbrances of the landed 
gentry — in the hollow of his hand. 

“You don’t like the elder Miss Crowther?” speculated 
the colonel. 

“Well, if I am to be candid, I must confess that I have 
a positive aversion to that young lady. The airs she gives 
herself on the strength of her father’s wool are really insup- 
portable; and, since Lord Lostwithiel disappointed her, she 
has been more odious than she was before.” 


ALL ALONG THE RLVER. 113 

“What do you mean by Lostwithiel disappointing her? 
Did he jilt her?” 

“Well, it could scarcely be called jilting, and I really 
don’t know that there was anything between them; but 
people had coupled their names — and he dined at Glenaveril 
at least once a week all the time he was at The Mount — and 
people had quite made up their minds it was to be a match. 
Mr. Crowther went about talking of Lord Lostwithiel and 
his affairs as if he was his father-in-law — the neglected con- 
dition of the land, and what ought to be done at The Mount, 
and that the estate wanted judicious nursing, and all that 
sort of thing. And then one December morning his lord- 
ship sailed off in his yacht before it was light, and there was 
no more heard of him. It was quite in his way to go off 
suddenly like that; but the Crowthers were evidently taken 
by surprise, and we heard no more about Lord Lostwithiel 
and The Mount.” 

“They dropped him like a hot potato,” said the doctor. 
“Well, we shall depend upon you both for our water party. 
It will not be till the middle of July, when an old chum 
of mine, a sailor, will be coming this way.” 

This was a sample of many such visits. In the country, 
and even in London upon occasion, people are given to dis- 
cussing the same subjects. Martin Disney heard a good 
deal about the Crowthers and their supposed disappoint- 
ment. People liked Mrs. Crowther for her simple, unaf- 
fected ways, and thorough-going kindliness; but Yansittart 
and his daughters had made a good many enemies. He 
was too coarse; they were too fine; only the mother’s 
simple nature had caught the golden mean between blunt 
vulgarity and artificial smartness. 

Colonel Disney heard all this village gossip with an un- 
heeding ear. He was secure in his own position as a son of 
the soil: a man whose pedigree could pass muster with that 


ALL ALONG THE ELVER. 


114 

of the Rashleighs and the Treffrys: a man of means that 
were ample for his own unpretending tastes and require- 
ments. He cared not a jot how many guineas a year the 
Crowthers might give to their cook, or how much Mr. Crow- 
ther had paid for the furnishing and decoration of his house; 
a theme upon which the gossips of the neighborhood loved 
to enlarge. That Mrs. Crowther had gowns from Worth, 
and that her daughters employed Mrs. Mason, irked not this 
simple soldier. The only point in all the stream of talk 
that had affected him was the unanimous opinion that Tre- 
lasco in the spring had been too relaxing for Mrs. Disney, 
or else that her solitude had preyed upon her mind, inas- 
much as she had looked so ill as to afford an interesting 
subject of conversation to a good many friendly people who 
suffered from the chronic malady of not having enough to 
talk about, a form of starvation almost as bad as not having 
enough to eat. 

The colonel listened, and made his own conclusions. He 
did not believe that Trelasco was “relaxing.” He loved 
the district too well to believe any evil thing about it. 
Those fresh breezes that blew up from the sea, those balmy 
airs that breathed across the heather-clad hills, must bring 
health with them. What could one have better than that 
mingling of sea and hill, brine and honey, gorse bloom and 
seaweed? No, Trelasco was not to blame. His young wife 
had suffered for lack of youthful company. He made up 
his mind accordingly. 

“I suppose you won’t object to our having Allegra here 
for a summer visit, will you, love?” he asked at breakfast 
the day after Mrs. Baynham’s call. “London must be hot 
and dusty in July; and she must want rest and country air, 
I fancy, after having worked so hard in her art school.” 

Isola gave a scarcely perceptible sigh as she bent to caress 
Tim, a privileged attendant of the breakfast table. 


ALL ALONG THE EL FEE. 115 

“Object ! Of course not, Martin. I shall be very pleased 
for your sister to come here.” 

“I feel very sure you will be pleased with her when you 
and she get upon intimate terms. You could know so little 
of her from that one evening in the Cavendish road.” 

The occasion in question was an evening in which Isola 
and her husband had been bidden to a friendly dinner, on 
their way through London, by the clergyman’s widow with 
whom Allegra lived while she pursued her study of art at 
a famous school in St. John’s Wood. The clergyman’s 
widow, Mrs. Meynell, was a distant cousin of the Disneys; 
and Allegra’s home had been with her from the time she left 
school. The extent of her wanderings, after she was old 
enough to be sent to a boarding school, had been from Fal- 
mouth to Kensington, and from Kensington to St. John’s 
Wood, with occasional holidays in the Isle of Thanet. 

“I thought she was very fresh, and bright, and loving,” 
answered Isola; “and I could see even in that one evening 
that she was very fond of you.” 

“Yes, God bless her, there is no doubt about that. I 
have been brother and father too for her. She has had no 
one but me since our mother’s death.” 

“Shall I write and ask her to come to us, Martin, or 
will you?” 

“I fancy she would take it more as a compliment if the 
invitation went straight from you. She would know that I 
would be glad to have her, but she might feel a little doubt- 
ful about you.” 

“Then I’ll write to her to-day, Martin, and beg her to 
come at once — as soon as ever she can pack her boxes.” 

“That’s my darling. I hope she won’t bore you when 
she is here. I have a shrewd idea she’ll make your life 
happier. She’ll awaken you from that languor which has 
grown upon you in your loneliness.” 


ii 6 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


“At least I’ll try to make her happy, Martin, if it is only 
for your sake.” 

“Ah, and you will soon love her for her own sake.” 

“I’ll get the boat looked to at once, and I’ll see about 
making the spare room pretty for her,” said Isola. 

A week later Allegra was with them, breakfasting on the 
lawn in the balmy atmosphere of July. There were two 
girls in white gowns under the tulip tree, instead of one; 
and Martin Disney felt as if his domestic happiness were 
doubled, as he looked at those two gracious figures in the 
flickering light below that canopy of broad bright leaves. 
Another element of comfort, too, had entered the Angler’s 
Rest; for the incompetent cook had taken her incompetency 
and a month’s wages to her native city of Truro; and a 
buxom damsel from Falmouth, recommended by Tabitha, 
had already proved herself a treasure in the culinary line. 

Never was there a fairer picture than that domestic group 
under the tulip tree. The two girlish figures in white mus- 
lin, with palest salmon and palest azure ribbons fluttering 
and glancing in the light, and deepening in the shadow; 
the white fox terrier, alert, muscular, mercurial; the tor- 
toise-shell cat, long-haired, aristocratic, and demure; the 
pretty Moorish plateau on bamboo legs; the purple and 
crimson breakfast service, and rare old silver urn; the fruit 
and flowers, and amber-hued butter, and rustic luxury of 
preserved fruit and clotted cream. 

“How lovely it all is after Cavendish road,” cried Allegra 
rapturously. ‘ ‘When I see the lights and shadows upon 
those hills, I despair of ever being able to paint a landscape 
as long as I live. Nature is maddeningly beautiful.” 

“What is your particular line, Allegra?” asked her 
brother. “Is it landscape?” 

“No; I only care for landscape as a background for 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


117 

humanity. I want to paint genre pictures in water color — 
women and children — beautiful women amid beautiful sur- 
roundings — picturesque poverty — interesting bits of daily 
life. Mrs. Allingham is the ideal after which I strive, but 
I am only at the bottom of the ladder. It is a long climb to 
the top; but one does not mind that in a profession where 
labor is delight.” 

“You are fond of art, then?” said Isola, watching the 
earnest, animated face of the speaker. 

“Fond of it! Why, I live for it! The dream of my life 
from the time I was seven years old has been one long dream 
of the bliss that was to be mine when I could feel myself 
able to paint. I have toiled with all my might. Martin dis- 
liked the idea of my being an Academy student — poor, fool- 
ish, ignorant Martin — so I have been obliged to plod on at 
St. John’s Wood, without hope of prizes or medals; but on 
the whole I have been very lucky, for I have made friends 
among the Academicians. They are very kind to any 
student who seems in right down earnest ; and they have 
been ever so good to me. I hope, Martin, you will find 
some day that I am something better than an amateur,” she 
concluded, resting her two hands caressingly upon her 
brother’s shoulder. 

“My dearest, I have not the least doubt you will astonish 
me. I am very ignorant of everything connected with art. 
I set my face against the Academy because I thought the 
training and the life would be too public for my sister.” 

“As if Burlington House were any more public than that 
big school at St. John’s Wood, my dear, illogical brother; 
and yet we women are the only people who are said to be 
wanting in the logical faculty.” 

She leaned back in her basket chair, reveling in the rural 
atmosphere, and in that new sense of being in the bosom of 
her family. Tim leaped upon her lap and licked her face, 


n8 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


in token of his acceptance of her into the home circle. 
Nobody had ever called Miss Leland a beauty, nor had she 
ever received those disquieting attentions which follow the 
footsteps of exceptional loveliness. She was sometimes 
described as a girl who grew upon one; and people who knew 
her well generally ended by thinking her distractingly 
pretty. She had a perfect complexion, of the true English 
type, fair and blooming — a complexion which indicated per- 
fect health and an active, orderly life; no late hours or 
novel-reading over the fire — an out-of-door complexion, 
which would have looked its best under a neat little felt hat 
in the hunting field, or under a coquettish straw sailor hat 
on board a yacht. Her eyes were blue-gray, with long, 
brown lashes and boldly marked eyebrows; her nose was 
firmly modeled, inclining a little to the aquiline order. Her 
mouth was the prettiest feature in her face, and yet it was, 
a shade larger than accepted perfection in mouths. It was 
a mouth chiefly remarkable for character and expression; 
and, indeed, it was the individuality $.nd variety of expres- 
sion in the fair young face which constituted Miss Leland’s 
chief claim to distinction. 

She started up from the nest of basket work and flowered 
chintz, and stood tall and erect, a Juno-like young woman, 
with heavy plaits of reddish-brown hair rolled in a great knot 
at the back of her head. She might have answered one of 
those harsh advertisements for parlor maids, in which the 
words, “No fringe,” figure with curt cruelty; for her hair 
was brushed smoothly back from the fair forehead, and the 
severity of the style became that wide sagacious brow. It 
was just the kind of forehead which can endure exposure 
without conveying an idea of bald ugliness. 

She was tall and strongly made, fashioned after the sem- 
blance of Diana or Atalanta, rather than Venus or Psyche. 
Her every movement had the bold, free grace of vigorous, 


ALL ALONG THE EL FEE. 


119 

unspoiled youth. She had always been active — fond of 
walking, riding, rowing, swimming, as well as of art; and 
with an ardent passion for the country, which had made 
existence in a London suburb one long sacrifice. 

“I used to take the train for Hampstead Heath or Willes- 
den,” she told her brother, “and go off for long, lonely 
tramps to Finchley or Hendon. I have watched the build- 
ers’ advances along roads and lanes I loved. I have seen 
horrid brick boxes creeping along like some new kind of 
noxious insect, eating up fields and hedgerows, old haw- 
thorns and old hollies. I could have sat down in the muddy 
road and cried sometimes, at the thought that soon there 
would be no country walk left within reach of a Londoner. 
Once I went off to the northeast, to look for the rural lanes 
Charles Lamb and his sister loved — the lanes and meadows 
where they carried their little picnic basket, till they took 
shelter at a homely inn. O Martin, all those fields and lanes, 
Charles Lamb’s country — are going, going, or gone! It is 
heart-breaking! And they are building at Fowey, too, I 
see. Positively there will be no country anywhere soon. 
There will be crescents, and terraces, and little ugly streets 
at the vei*y Land’s End; and the Logan Rock will be the 
sign of a public house.” 

“Don’t be downhearted, Chatterbox! I think Cornwall 
may last our time,” said Disney, laughing at her vehemence. 

Allegra was a great talker. It seemed as if she had a 
well-spring of joy and life within her which must find an 
outlet. When people ventured to hint at her loquacity she 
declared that her name was in fault. 

“I have grown up to match my name,” she said; “if I 
had been christened Penserosa I might have been quite a 
different person.” 

Her vivacity gave a new element of brightness to the 
Angler’s Rest, where Disney had been somewhat oppressed 


120 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


by the sensation of intense repose which had pervaded his 
tHe-h-tite life with Isola. He loved his wife so entirely, so 
unselfishly, and devotedly that it was happiness to him to be 
with her ; yet, in the three or four weeks that had gone by 
since his return, he had struggled in vain against the feeling 
that there was something wanting in his home. Isola waited 
upon him, and deferred to him with more than wifely sub- 
missiveness. He would have liked a spurt of rebellion once 
in a way, a little burst of girlish temper, just to show that 
she was human ; but none ever came. His every desire was 
anticipated. Whatever plan he suggested — to walk, to 
drive, to visit, or not to visit — the river or the sea — was 
always the plan that pleased her best, or at least she 
said so. 

“I think I shall call you Griselda instead of Isola,” he 
said one day, taking the fair, pale face between his hands 
and gazing into the mournful depths of the dark violet eyes 
— inscrutable eyes they seemed to him, when the pupils 
dilated under his gaze, as if the eyes made a darkness to 
hide their meaning. 

“Why?” she asked. 

A flood of crimson passed over her face like a fire, and 
left her paler than before. 

“Because you are only too dutiful. Would you resist if 
I were to turn tyrant, I wonder?” 

“I have no fear of your turning tyrant,” she answered, 
with a sad little smile; “you are only too good to me.” 

“Good! There can be no question of goodness. If a 
man picked up a diamond as precious as the Kohinoor, 
could he be good to it? How can I be good to my gem? 
I have but one thing left in the world to desire, or to pray 
for. ’ * 

“What is that, Martin?” 

“To see you happy.” 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


I 2 I 


Again the sudden flame crimsoned her face, that sensitive 
spiritual face which reflected every change of feeling. 

“I am happy, Martin, quite happy; happier than I ever 
thought to be, now that you are home again. What have I 
more to desire?” 

“Is that really so? Was my long absence your greatest 
trouble?” 

“Yes,” she answered slowly, looking at him with a curi- 
ously steady look ; “that was the beginning and end of my 
trouble.” 

“Thank God,” he said, drawing a deep breath. “There 
have been moments — just of late — when I have puzzled and 
puzzled my brains about you — until I thought — ” very 
slowly, “there might have been something else.” 

He clasped her in his arms, and hid her face upon his 
breast, as if — fearing that he might have wounded her by 
those last words — he wanted to make amends before she had 
time to feel his unkindness. His tenderness for her had so 
much of that pitying love which a strong man feels for a 
child. 

This conversation occurred the day before Allegra’s 
arrival ; but, with that young lady’s appearance on the scene, 
new life and gladness came into the little household. Al- 
legra sang, Allegra played, Allegra ran out into the garden 
twenty times a day, and called through the open window to 
Isola, sitting quietly in the drawing room, to come out and 
look at this or that — a rose finer than all other roses — a sug- 
gested alteration — an atmospheric effect — anything and 
everything. She was a keen observer of nature, full of 
vivid interest in every creature that lived, and in every 
flower that grew. Tim followed her everywhere as she 
danced along the gravel walks, or across the short, springy 
turf. Tim adored her, and grinned at her, and threw him- 
self into all manner of wriggling attitudes upon the grass to 


122 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


express his delight in her company, and fawned at her feet, 
and talked to her after his guttural fashion, snorting his 
friendly feelings. Tim had long languished for such a com- 
panion, having found his young mistress’ society very heavy 
of late. No more runs in the meadow, no more rambles in 
the neighboring spinny, and very little boating. But now 
that Allegra had come the skiff was seldom idle. Isolahad 
to go on the river whether she liked or not. There were 
strong young arms ready to pull her — round young arms, of 
a lovely roseate fairness, which looked their best, stretched 
to the motion of the sculls, with the white cambric shirt 
rolled up above the elbow. 

“You can read Shelley while I scull the boat,’’ said Al- 
legra. “I don’t want any help. If you knew what rapture 
it is to me to feel the breath of Seagods and Tritons after St. 
John’s Wood, and the smoke from the Metropolitan Rail- 
way, you wouldn’t pity me.’’ 

Isola submitted, and sat at her ease upon bright-colored 
cushions, with an Indian rug spread round her, as idle as if 
she had been the belle of a zenana, and read “Alastor” while 
the boat sped seaward in the sunshine. 

Sometimes they moored their boat at the landing stage 
at Polruan, and walked up the hill to the Point, and sat 
there for an hour or two in the summer wind, w r ith their 
books and picnic basket, seeing great ships go out toward 
the Lizard and the big distant world, or sail merrily home- 
ward toward Plymouth and the Start. Isola looked at those 
outward bound ships with a strange longing in her eyes — a 
longing to flee away upon those broad wings that flashed 
whitely in the sunlit distance. Were people happy on board 
those ships, she wondered, happy at escaping from the fet- 
ters of an old life and a beaten path ; happy going away to 
strange lands and freedom? She had been reading many 
books of travel of late, and a kind of passion for remote, 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


123 


uncivilized countries had come upon her ; as if that untram- 
meled life meant release from memory and saddening cares 
— a new birth almost. It seemed from some of those books 
as if there could be no greater happiness upon this earth 
than to tramp across sandy deserts and stalk occasional 
lions; while in others the supreme good seemed to be found 
in the attempt to scale impossible mountains. What was it 
that made the rapture of these things? Isola wondered. 
Was it that perils and wild solitudes offered the only possi- 
ble escape out of a past existence, on this side the grave? 
Allegra had never so much as crossed the Channel. She 
had been brought up in the most humdrum fashion. First a 
school at Falmouth, and then a smarter school at Kensing- 
ton, and then St. John’s Wood and the Art School. Her 
mother had died when she was fourteen years of age; and 
since that time her brother had been her only guardian and 
almost her only friend. Her life had seen but little variety, 
and very little of the dancing and gayety which for most 
girls is the only form of pleasure. She and Isola talked 
about the ships as they sat upon the grassy hill at Polruan, 
and speculated about the lands of which they knew only 
what they had read in books of travel. 

“You, at least, know what France is like,’’ said Allegra, 
“and that is something.’’ 

“Only one little corner of France.’’ 

“And to think that you were born in an old French city! 
It seems strange. Do you feel at all French?’’ 

“I don’t think so; only sometimes a longing comes upon 
me to see the old gray walls, and to hear the old voices, and 
see the c.'.rious old women in their white caps and bright- 
colored Handkerchiefs, clattering along to the cathedral. 
There must be more old women in Brittany than in Corn- 
wall, I think. Fowey does not swarm with old women as 
Dinan did. And sometimes I long to see mother, and the 


124 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


'good old Brittany servants, and the garden where the hours 
went by so slowly — almost as slowly as they go here” — 
with a sigh. 

“Does time go so very slowly here?” asked Allegra 
quickly. “That sounds as if you were unhappy.” 

“What nonsense you talk,” cried Isola, with a flash of 
sudden anger. “Cannot one be dull and bored sometimes 
— from very idleness — without being unhappy?” 

“I don’t know; but, for my own part, when I am happy I 
am never dull.” 

“You have more of what people call animal spirits than I 
have.” 

“I’m glad you apologize in a manner for that odious 
phrase — animal spirits. I would not apply such a phrase to 
Tim. It suggests nothing but Audrey at a statute fair. 
Heaven gave me a capacity for happiness, and I thank God 
every night in my prayers for another happy day. Even at 
school I contrived to be happy, somehow; and think what it 
must be, after seven years of dull routine, to feel that I have 
done with sitting at a stranger’s table, and that I am here in 
a home, my own home, with my brother and sister.” 

The two women clasped hands, and kissed each other 
upon this. Only the night before Isola, of her own free 
will, had asked her sister-in-law to make her home at the 
Angler’s Rest always, always, till she should be led out of 
it as a bride; and Martin had shown himself supremely 
happy in the knowledge that his sister had won his wife’s 
love and confidence. 

When Isola and he were alone together after the sealing 
of that family bond, he kissed and thanked her for this boon 
which she had bestowed upon him. 

“I never could have felt quite at ease while Allegra was 
living with strangers,” he told her. “And now my cup is 
full. But are you sure, dearest, that you will never find her 


ALL ALONG THE EL FEE. 125 

in the way, never fancy yourself any the less mistress of 
your house, and of my life, because she is here?” 

“Never, never, never! I am gladder than I can say to 
have her. She is a delightful companion. She helps me in 
a hundred ways. But, even if she were less charming, it 
would be my duty to have her here since you like her to be 
with us.” 

“But it must not be done as a duty. I will not have you 
sacrifice your inclination in the slightest degree.” 

“What an obtuse person you are! Don’t I tell you that 
I am enchanted to have her? She is as much my sister as 
ever Gwendoline was; indeed, she is much more sympa- 
thetical than Gwen ever was.” 

“Then I am perfectly content.” 

Allegra wrote to Mrs. Meynell next day, announcing the 
decision that had been arrived at, not without grateful 
acknowledgments of that lady’s kindness. The rest of her 
belongings were to be sent to her forthwith, easels, and 
color boxes, books and knickknacks; her brother’s gifts, 
most of them from the romantic East; things which made 
her few little Kensingtonian keepsakes look very trivial and 
Philistine. Allegra’s possessions gave a new individuality 
to the large, airy bedroom, and the tiny boudoir at the cor- 
ner of the house, looking seaward, which Isola had ar- 
ranged for her. 

While these things were doing Martin Disney was buying 
horses and buying land — a farm of over two hundred acres, 
which would make his property worth holding; and he had 
further employed a Plymouth architect to plan an enlarge- 
ment of the old-fashioned cottage — a long room opening out 
of the drawing room, for a library and morning room, two 
bedrooms over, a veranda below, and a loggia above. In 
that mild climate the loggia would afford a pleasant lounge 
even in winter, and myrtle and roses would speedily cover 


126 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


the massive wooden columns which sustained the tiled roof. 
It was to be a homely Italian loggia — unpretentious, and 
not particularly architectural ; but Isola and her sister-in- 
law were delighted at the idea. 

The stables were to be enlarged as well as the house. 

“You have no idea how I have hoarded and scraped to lay 
by money ever since I bought the Rest,” said Disney. 
“I believe I was the worst-dressed man in the service all 
through my last campaign.” 

He laughed aloud in amused remembrance of many small 
sacrifices, while the three heads clustered over the archi- 
tect’s plan, which had that factitious prettiness of delicate 
drawing and color which makes every house so much nearer 
perfection upon paper than it ever can be in sober brick 
and stone. 


CHAPTER IX. 

“the spitefullest of talkers in our town.” 

Like most small country settlements, little fraternities of 
well-to-do people who think themselves the beginning and 
end of the world, Trelasco was slow to rise to any festivity in 
the way of party-giving. So it was about two months after 
Colonel Disney’s return before the friendly calls and inter- 
change of small civilities culminated in a dinner party at 
Glenaveril. It seemed, indeed, only right and natural that 
the great house of the district, great by reason of Lord 
Lostwithiel’s non-residence, should be the first to open its 
doors in a ceremonial manner to the colonel and his woman- 
kind. The invitation to his sister might be taken as an espe- 
cial compliment: arms outstretched to receive one who was 
a stranger in the land. 

“We want to know that nice young sister of yours,” 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


T27 


Mr. Crowther said to Colonel Disney, in his patronizing 
way, as they all came out of church the Sunday before the 
dinner party. “A remarkably fine girl.” 

The colonel did not thank him for this compliment, which 
was pronounced in a loud voice, amid the little knot of ac- 
quaintances taking leave of each other on the dip of the hill, 
where there was a signpost on a patch of w r aste grass, and 
where road and lanes divided, one up the hill to Tyward- 
reath, another to Fowey, and a narrow-wooded lane lead- 
ing down to Glenaveril and the Angler’s Rest. Short as the 
distance was, there were carriages waiting for the Crowthers, 
who never walked to church, however fine the weather. 
Mrs. Crowther came to the morning service resplendent in a 
brocade gown and a Parisian bonnet, on pain of being con- 
demned as dowdy by her husband, who liked to put the stamp 
of his wealth upon every detail. His wife obeyed him with 
wifely meekness, but the daughters were not so easily ruled. 
Both were keen-witted enough to feel the vulgarity of Sun- 
day morning splendor. So Belinda worshiped in the ex- 
aggerated simplicity of an unstarched jaconet muslin, a 
yellow Liberty sash, a flopping Gainsborough hat, and a 
necklace of Indian beads; an attire which attracted every 
eye, and was a source of wonder to the whole congregation; 
while Alicia’s neat gray cashmere frock, made by the best 
tailor in Conduit Street, and smart little toque to match, 
gray gloves, gray silk stockings, gray prayer-book, and sun- 
shade, challenged criticism as a study in monochrome. 
Mr. Crowther would have lingered for further conversation, 
before getting into the family landau; but Colonel Disney 
bade a rather abrupt good-morning to the whole group, and 
hurried his wife and sister down the hill. 

“I’m rather sorry we accepted the Glenaveril invitation,” 
he said to Isola. “The man is such an obvious cad.” 

» “Mrs. Crowther is very kind and good,” replied his wife; 


128 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


“but I have never cared much about going to Glenaveril. 
I don’t feel that I get on particularly well with the girls. 
They are both too fine for me. But I should be sorry to 
offend Mrs. Crowther.”* 

“Yes, she seems a kindly creature. It was thoughtful of 
her sending you a ticket for the ball. A woman with 
daughters is seldom overkind to outsiders.” 

“Oh, I believe Mrs. Crowther’s heart is big enough to be 
kind to a whole parish.” 

“Well, on her account, perhaps it was best to accept the 
invitation. ” 

“Don’t be so grand about it, Martin,” said Allegra. 
“You forget that I am pining to see what a dinner party in 
a very rich house is like. I have seen nothing in London 
but literary and artistic dinners, third-rate literary and third- 
rate artistic, I’m afraid; but they were very nice, all the 
same. Glenaveril is a place that takes my breath away, and 
I am curious to see what a dinner party can be like there.” 

“Then for your sake, Allegra, I’m glad we said yes. 
Only I couldn’t stand that fellow patronizing you. Calling 
you a fine girl, forsooth!” 

“Yes, it is an odious phrase, is it not? I’m afraid I shall 
have to live through it, because, like Rosalind, ‘I am more 
than common tall.’ ” 

She drew herself up to her full height, straight as a reed, 
but with fully developed bust, and shoulders which showed 
to advantage in her pale tussore gown — silk that her brother 
had sent her from India. She looked the incarnation of 
girlish innocence and girlish happiness — a brow without a 
cloud, a step light as a fawn’s — a fearless, happy nature. 
Her more commonplace features and finer figure were in 
curious contrast with Isola’s pensive beauty and too fragile 
form. Disney glanced from one to the other as he walked 
along the rustic lane between them; and, though he thought 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 129 

his wife the lovelier, he regretted that she was not more like 
his sister. 

A man who is very fond of home, and who has no profes- 
sional cares and occupations, is apt to degenerate into a 
molly-coddle. Martin Disney gave an indication of this 
weakness on the day before the dinner at Glenaveril. 

“What are you two girls going to wear?” he asked. 
“At least, I don’t think I need ask Isola that question. 
You’ll wear your wedding gown, of course, love?” he added, 
turning to his wife. 

“No, Martin, I am going to wear my gray silk.” 

“Gray! A dowager’s color, a soured spinster’s color — a 
Quaker’s no color. I detest gray.” 

“Oh, but this is a very pretty gown — the palest shade of 
pearl color — and I wear pink roses with it. It was made in 
Paris. I feel sure you will like me in it, Martin,” Isola said 
hurriedly, as if even this small matter fluttered her nerves. 

“Not as well as I like you in your wedding gown. That 
was made in Paris, and it fitted you like a glove. I never 
saw such a pretty gown — so simple, yet so elegant.” 

“I have been married much too long to dress as a bride.” 

“You shall not seem as a bride — except to me. For my 
eyes only shall you shine in bridal loveliness. Bride or no 
bride, what can be prettier for a young woman than a white 
satin gown with a long train. You can wear some touch of 
color to show you have not got yourself up as a bride. 
What do you say, Allegra? Give us your opinion. No 
doubt you are an authority upon dress.” 

“Oh, the white satin, by all means. Isola looks ethereal 
in white. She ought hardly ever to wear anything else.” 

“You hear, Isa. Two to one against you.” 

“I’m sorry I can’t be governed by your opinions in this 
instance. You forget that I last wore my gown at a ball. 


130 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


I danced a good deal — the floor was dirty — the gown was 
spoiled. I shall never wear it again. I hope that will sat- 
isfy you, Martin.” 

She spoke with a touch of temper, her cheeks flushed 
crimson, and her eyes filled with sudden tears as she looked 
deprecatingly at her husband. Martin Disney felt himself 
a brute. 

“My dearest, I didn’t mean to tease you,” he said, 
‘‘wear anything you like. You are sure to be the prettiest 
woman in the room. I am sorry the gown was spoiled ; but 
it can’t be helped. I’ll buy you another white satin gown 
the first time you and I are in Plymouth together. And, 
pray, Miss Allegra, what bravery will you sport?” 

‘‘I have only a white lace frock that has seen some serv- 
ice,” replied his sister meekly. “I dare say I shall look 
like somebody’s poor relation at such a place as Glenaveril.” 

‘‘Oh, it’s not to be a grand party, by any means. Mrs. 
Crowther told me she had asked the Baynhams and the vic- 
arage people to meet us, just in a friendly way.” 

The party was decidedly small; for, on arriving with rea- 
sonable punctuality, the Disneys found only one guest on 
the scene, in the person of Mr. Colfox, the curate, who was 
sitting by one of the little artistic tables showing a new 
puzzle of two pieces of interlinked iron to the two Misses 
Crowther. These young ladies were so intensely interested 
in the trick of disentanglement that they scarcely noticed 
the entrance of their mother’s guests; and only rose and 
came over to greet the party three minutes later, as an 
afterthought. 

Mr. and Mrs. Crowther, however, were both upon the 
alert to receive their friends, the lady frankly cordial, the 
gentleman swelling with pompous friendliness, as if his 
manly breast were trying to emerge from the moderate 
restriction of a very open heart-shaped waistcoat. He pro- 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


I3i 

tested that he was charmed to welcome Colonel Disney to 
Glenaveril, and he glanced round the splendid walls as who 
should say, “It is no light thing to invite people to such a 
house as this.” 

Vansittart Crowther was a man of short, squat figure, who 
tried to make up for the want of inches by extreme upright- 
ness, and had cultivated this carriage until he seemed incap- 
able of bending. He had a bald head, disguised by one 
dappled streak of gray and sandy hair, which was plastered 
into a curl on each side of his brow — curls faintly suggestive 
of a cat’s ears. He had blunt features, a sensual lip, and 
dull, fishy eyes, large and protuberant, with an expression 
in perfect harmony with the heavy, sensual mouth. 

Mr. and Mrs. Baynham were the next arrivals; the lady 
wearing the family amethysts and the well-known black vel- 
vet, under whose weighty splendor she arrived short of 
breath; the gentleman, expansive of shirt front, and genial 
of aspect, jovial at the prospect of a good dinner and choice 
wines, and not hypercritical as to the company in which he 
ate the feast. He shook hands with his host and hostess, 
and then went over to the Misses Crowther, who had not 
thought it necessary to suspend their absorbing occupation 
in order to welcome the village doctor’s wife — a fact which 
Mrs. Baynham observed and inwardly resented. 

Mr. Colfox deserted the young ladies, still puzzling over 
the two bits of iron, and went across the room to greet the 
Disneys. He was an intelligent young man, steeped to the 
lips in the opinions and the prejudices of university life — • 
Oxford life, that is to say. He ranked as a literary man in 
Trelasco, on the strength of having had an article almost 
published in Blackwood. “The editor had accepted my 
paper,’’ he told people modestly ; “but on further consid- 
eration he found it was a little too long, and so, in point of 
fact, he sent it back to me in the most courteous manner. 


132 


ALL ALONG THE RLVER. 


He couldn’t have acted more kindly — but I was disap- 
pointed. It would have been such an opening, you see.” 

All Mr. Coif ox’s friends agreed that with such an open- 
ing the highroad to literary fame and fortune would have 
been made smooth for his feet. They respected him even 
for this disappointment. To have been accepted by Black- 
wood made him almost a colleague of George Eliot. 

He was a tall and rather lean young man, who wore an 
eyeglass, and seemed to live upon books. It was irritating 
to Yansittart Crowther, who prided himself on his cellar and 
his cook, to note how little impression food and drink made 
upon Francis Colfox. 

“He takes my Chateau Yquem as if it were Devonshire 
cider,” said the aggrieved parvenu; “and he hardly seems 
to know that this is the only house where he ever sees clear 
turtle. The man’s people must have lived in a very poor 
way. ’ ’ 

In spite of this contemptuous opinion, Mr. Crowther was 
always polite to Francis Colfox, and had even thought of 
him as a pis-aller for one of his daughters. There is hardly 
anything in this life which a self-made man respects so much 
as race; and Francis Colfox belonged to an old county fam- 
ily, had a cousin who was an earl, and another cousin who 
was talked of as a probable bishop. He was, therefore, 
allowed to make himself very much at home at Glenaveril, 
and to speak his mind in a somewhat audacious way to the 
whole family. 

Captain Pentreath, an army man of uncertain age, a bach- 
elor, and one of a territorial family of brothers, came next; 
and then appeared the vicar and his wife and one daughter, 
who made up the party. The vicar was deaf, but amiable, 
and beamed benevolently upon a world about whose spoken 
opinions he knew so little that he might naturally have taken 
it for a much better world than it is. The vicar’s wife 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


133 


spent her existence in interpreting and explaining people’s 
speech to the vicar, and had no time to spare for opinions 
of her own. The daughter was characterized by a gentle 
nullity, tempered by a somewhat enthusiastic and evan- 
gelical piety. The chief desire of her life was to keep the 
Church as it had been in the days of her childhood, nearly 
thirty years before. 

It was the first time the Disneys had dined together at 
Glenaveril, so it seemed only proper that Mr. Crowther 
should give his arm to Isola, which he did with an air of 
conferring an honor. The colonel had been ordered to take 
the vicar’s wife, and the doctor was given to Allegra; Cap- 
tain Pentreath took Miss Trequite, the vicar’s daughter; 
Mr. Colfox followed with Mrs. Baynham, and the daughters 
of the house went modestly to the dining room after the 
vicar and Mrs. Crowther. 

The dinner table was as pretty as roses and Venetian glass 
could make it. There was no pompous display of ponder- 
ous plate, as there might have been thirty years ago on a 
parvenu’s board. Everybody is enlightened nowadays. 
The great “culture” movement has been as widespread 
among the middle class as compulsory education among the 
proletariat, and everybody has a taste. Scarcely were they 
seated, when Mr. Crowther informed Mrs. Disney that he 
hated a display of silver ; but at the same time took care to 
let her know that the Venetian glass she admired was rather 
more valuable than that precious metal. “And if it’s 
broken, there’s nothing left you for your outlay,” he said, 
“but it’s a fancy of my wife and girls. Those decanters 
are better than anything Salviati ever made for royalty.” 

The table was oval, lighted by one large lamp, under an 
umbrella-shaped amber shade, a lamp which diffused a faint 
golden glow through the dusky room; and through this 
dreamy dimness the footmen moved like ghosts, while the 


*34 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


table and the faces of the diners shone and sparkled in the 
brilliant light. It was as picturesque a dining room and 
table as one need care to see; and if the Gainsboroughs and 
Reynoldses, which here and there relieved the somber russet 
of the Cordovan leather hangings, were not the portraits of 
Mr. and Mrs. Crowther’s ancestors, they were not the less 
lovely or interesting as works of art. 

Isola sat by her host’s side, with a silent and somewhat 
embarrassed air, which her husband noted as he watched 
her from the other side of the table. 

All the decorations were low, so that no pryamid of fruit 
or flowers intervened to prevent a man watching the face 
opposite to him. Disney saw that while Allegra, in her 
place between Mr. Baynham and Alicia Crowther, was full 
of talk and animation, Isola sat with downcast eyes, and 
replied with a troubled look to her host’s remarks. There 
was something in that gentleman’s manner which was par- 
ticularly obnoxious to the colonel: a protecting air, a fath- 
erly familiarity, which brought the bald, shining forehead 
almost in contact with Isola’s shoulder. 

As the man bent to whisper and to titter in the very ear 
of his neighbor, the colonel got through a little duty talk 
with Mrs. Trequite, whose attention was frequently dis- 
tracted by the necessity of explaining Mrs. Crowther’s 
polite murmurs to the vicar on the other side of the 
table; and this duty done he gave himself up to watching 
Isola and her host. Why did she blush so when the 
man talked to her? Was it the bold admiration of those 
fishy eyes which annoyed her, or the man’s manner alto- 
gether; or was it anything that he said? Disney strained 
his ears to hear their conversation, if that could be called 
conversation which was for the most part monologue. 

The man was talking of the hunt ball of last winter. Dis- 
ney heard such snatches of speech as “the prettiest woman 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER . 135 

in the room,” “everybody said so,” “Lostwithiel was evi- 
dently epris. ’ ' 

Mr. Crowther had a penchant for scraps of French, which 
decorated his speech as truffles adorn a boned turkey. 

“Isn’t it odd that he should be such a rover?” he asked, 
in a less confidential tone than before. 

Isola looked up at him, as if hardly understanding the 
question. 

“I mean Lostwithiel. With such a nice place as he has 
here, it seems a pity to be broiling himself in Peru. I never 
could understand the taste for orchids; and in his case — 
well, I hardly believe in it. He is the last man to emulate 
a Hooker or a Lawrence. Orchid-hunting must be an ex- 
cuse for keeping away from England, I take it. Don’t you 
think so now, Mrs. Disney?” 

“I really don’t know.” 

“You don’t know why he should want to keep away? 
No, no more does anybody else. Only we all wonder, don’t 
you know. He talked to me of settling down in the county 
— looking after the estate a little. He even hinted that he 
might, in due course, cast about for a nice young wife — 
with a little money. And then all of a sudden off he sails 
in that rakish yacht of his, and roves from port to port like 
the Flying Dutchman in the Opera, till at last we hear of 
him on the coast of Peru. Curious, aint it, Mrs. Disney?” 

“Why curious?” asked Isola coldly. “Was not Lord 
Lostwithiel always fond of yachting?” 

“No doubt; but when a man talks of settling down in his 
native place — and then doesn’t do it — there must be a 
reason, mustn’t there?” 

“I don’t know. People act as often from caprice as 
from reason.” 

“Ah, that is a lady’s idea. No man who is worthy the 
name ever acts from caprice,” said Mr. Crowther, with his 


136 


ALL ALONG THE RLVER. 


insinuating air, as if some hidden meaning were in the 
words; and then, looking across the table and seeing the 
colonel’s watchful face, he altered both tone and manner as 
he added, “Of course you know Lostwithiel, Colonel 
Disney?” 

“I saw a good deal of Lord Lostwithiel when he was a 
small boy,” answered the colonel coldly. “His father was 
one of my early friends. But that is a long time ago.” 

“How old is he, do you say?” 

“Debrett will answer that question better than I can. I 
have never reckoned the years that have gone by since I saw 
him in an Eton collar.” 

The men did not sit long over their wine. The doctor 
and his host talked agriculture, Mr. Crowther discussing 
all farming operations upon a large scale as became a man 
of territorial magnitude. The vicar prosed about an ap- 
proaching lecture at the schoolroom, and utterly failed in 
hearing anything that was said in reply to his observations. 
Colonel Disney smoked a cigarette in silence, and with a 
moody brow. 

Later, in the drawing room, while the Crowther girls 
were playing a clamorous duet, by the last fashionable Scla- 
vonic composer, Vansittart Crowther directed his conversa- 
tion almost wholly to Mrs. Disney, as if she were the only 
person worthy of his attention. He was full of suggestions 
for future gayeties in which the Disneys were to share— ' 
picnics, boating parties. 

“You must help us to wake up the neighborhood, colo' 
nel,” he said, addressing Disney with easy friendliness. 

“We are not very likely to be of much assistance to you 
in that line,” Disney answered coldly. “We are humdrum 
stay-at-home people, my wife and I, and take our pleasures 
on a very small scale.” 

Colonel Disney’s carriage was announced at this moment. 


ALL ALONG THE EL FEE. 


137 


He gave his wife a look which plainly indicated his wish to 
depart, and she rose quickly from the low, deep chair in 
which she had been sitting, in some manner a captive, while 
Mr. Crowther lolled across the broad, plush-cushioned arm 
to talk to her. Allegra was engrossed in a talk about Wil- 
liam Morris’ last poem with Mr. Colfox, who was delighted 
to converse with anyone fresh from the far-away world of 
art and literature — delighted altogether with Allegra, whose 
whole being presented a piquant contrast to the Misses 
Crowther. But the colonel’s sister saw the movement 
toward departure, and hastened to her brother’s side. 
Briefest adieus followed, and the first of the guests being 
gone, left behind them a feeling of uneasiness in those 
whose carriages had been ordered half an hour later. One 
premature departure will cast a blight upon your small dull 
party; whereas from a scene of real mirth the nine Muses 
and three Graces might all slip away unmissed and unob- 
served. 


CHAPTER X. 

“of the weak my heart is the weakest.” 

“You had better send cards to Mrs. Crowther, Isola, ” 
said Martin Disney, two days afterward, when his wife was 
sitting at her davenport writing her family letters. 

“Cards! O Martin, she would think that so very formal. 
I can call upon her. She is always at home on Thursday 
afternoons, and she likes me to go.” 

“I am sorry for that, since I had rather you should never 
enter her house again.” 

“Martin!” 

“I have nothing to say against Mrs. Crowther, my dear 
Isola. But the man is more detestable than I could have 


138 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


believed low birth and unlimited money could make any 
man. Guileless and inexperienced as you are, I think you 
must have felt that his manner to you the other night was 
familiar to the point of being insulting.” 

Isola had felt both embarrassed and distressed by her 
host’s attentions — the insinuating inflections of his fat, pom- 
pous voice; his air of being upon a confidential footing with 
her. It had seemed to her on that evening as if, for the first 
time in her life, before the eyes of men and women, she 
drank the cup of shame. She had said no word to her hus- 
band of Mr. Crowther’s oppressive familiarity, and she had 
fondly hoped that the matter had escaped his notice. 

She sat before him now, flushed and agitated, with lowered 
eyelids, and one hand restlessly moving about the papers on 
her blotting pad. 

“My dearest, there is nothing in all this to distress you,” 
said Disney, with infinite gentleness. “It is not your fault 
that the man is a cad ; but it would be my fault if I were to 
allow you or Allegra to go to his house again.” 

“He was not rude to Allegra.” 

“No; it would be her turn next, perhaps. He did not 
mean to be rude to you. He only wanted to be especially 
polite in his own odious fashion. There are men in that 
class who cannot behave decently to a pretty woman, or 
civilly to a plain one. He meant no doubt to gratify you 
by his compliments. What a stress he laid upon Lostwithiel’s 
attention to you at the ball. Were his attentions so very 
marked?” 

“Oh, no; not more to me than to others,” Isola answered 
quickly. “He danced a good many times — twice or three 
times — with Belinda Crowther. Everybody noticed them as 
the handsomest couple in the room ; not that he is hand- 
some, of course — only tall and distinguished looking.” 

Allegra came dancing in from the lawn, and broke the 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


139 


thread of the conversation. Isola put the three visiting 
cards into an envelope and addressed it to Mrs. Vansittart 
Crowther. She felt that the kindly matron would be puzzled 
and vexed at this ceremony, from a young person toward 
whom she had assumed so motherly a tone, urging her to 
run over to Glenaveril at any hour of the day — asking her to 
lunch or to tea at least once a week — wanting to take her for 
drives to Lostwithiel, or railway jaunts to Plymouth. 

Isola was not mistaken, for Mrs. Crowther called three or 
four days afterward and upbraided her for sending the cards. 

“You might have all come to tea on Friday, if you had 
been good-natured,” she said, “Mr. Colfox read us a poem 
by Swinburne, out of one of the new magazines — there are 
so many nowadays that I never remember which is which. 
Belinda was delighted with it — but Alicia and I can’t rise to 
her height. Mr. Colfox reads poetry beautifully. You 
can’t judge of his powers by only hearing him read the les- 
sons,” added Mrs. Crowther, as if the English Bible were 
a poor thing. 

She stopped an hour, praised Isola’s tea-making and the 
new cook’s tea cakes, asked a great many questions about 
Allegra’s ideas and occupations, and was as hearty, and 
simple, and friendly, and natural as if she had been a duchess. 

It grieved Isola to be obliged to refuse an invitation to 
luncheon, most cordially pressed upon her and Allegra. 

“I would drive you both to Lostwithiel after lunch, and 
we could do our little bit of shopping and then have a cup 
of tea at the Talbot, while the horses had their mouths 
washed out, and I’d show you the room where your broth- 
er’s wife was so much admired last year, Miss Leland, and 
where I hope you’ll have many a good dance next winter. 
Now the ice is broken we mean to go on with our balls, I 
can tell you. Indeed, my girls are thinking of trying to get 
up a tennis club ball about the end of September.” 


140 ALL ALONG THE ELVER. 

This was the last time Mrs. Vansittart Crowther appeared 
in a friendly manner at the Angler’s Rest; for, after two or 
three further invitations — to a picnic — to tea — to lunch — had 
been declined, in most gracious little notes from Isola, that 
good lady perceived that there was some kind of barrier to 
friendly intercourse between her and Colonel Disney’s wife, 
and she told herself with some touch of honest middle-class 
dignity that if Martin Disney was proud she could be proud 
too, and that she would make no further offer of friendship 
which was undesired. 

“I suppose he thinks because he comes of a good family, 
while we have made our money in trade, that we are not 
quite good enough to associate with his wife and sister,” she 
said to her daughters. “I thought he was too much of a 
gentleman to have such a petty feeling.” 

“How innocent you are, mother,” cried Alicia contemptu- 
ously, ‘‘can’t you see that they are all bursting with envy? 
That was what made the colonel so gloomy and disagreeable 
the night of our little dinner. He was vexed to see things 
done with as good taste as in a nobleman’s house. It cuts 
these poor gentilities to the quick to see that. They don’t 
much mind our being rich, if we will only be vulgar and 
uneducated. But when we have the impertinence to be as 
well up in the ways of good society as they are themselves, 
they can’t forgive us. Good taste in a parvenu is the 
unpardonable sin.” 

“Well, I don’t know,” mused Mrs. Crowther sadly. 
“I’m sure there’s neither pride nor envy in Isola, and Miss 
Leland looks a frank, straightforward girl, above all foolish 
nonsense; so it must be the colonel’s fault that they’ve cut 
us.” 

“Cut us,” echoed Belinda, “the Angler’s Rest cutting 
Glenaveril is rather too absurd an idea.” 

“My dear, you don’t know the importance Cornish people 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


141 

attach to old family — and the Disneys are a very old family 
— and no one can deny that he is a gentleman, though we 
don’t like him.” 

“Oh, no doubt he considers that he belongs to the landed 
gentry. He has bought Rowe’s farm, two hundred and 
sixty acres. He had forty to begin with, so he is now lord 
of three hundred acres, just half our home farm.” 

“His cousin, Sir Luke Disney, has a large estate near 
Marazion,” said Mrs. Crowther meekly. 

“Yes, but we don’t reckon a man’s importance by his 
cousin’s estate. Colonel Disney is only a squatter in this 
part of the country. ’ ’ 

Alicia pronounced the word with gusto. It had been 
whispered to her that the squire of Fowey had spoken of her 
father — who counted his acres by thousands — as a squatter. 
That unimpeachable importance, founded upon the estab- 
lished respectability of bygone centuries — centuries in which 
men wore armor, and women breakfasted on beef and ale — 
was not to be bought with gold and silver; and the want of 
it often made the Misses Crowther angry. Diamonds they 
could have, and land, art, and beauty, even the ways and 
manners of good society; but they could not buy themselves 
a history. Everybody knew that their splendors had all 
come out of a cloth mill, that their ingots had been in some 
part transmuted from pestiferous woolen rags gathered in 
the Jewish quarters of far-off cities, ground into shoddy, 
and anon issued to the world as sleek superfine cloth. The 
more shoddy the higher interest upon capital ; and Vansittart 
Crowther’ s daughters knew too many secrets of the mills to 
be proud of the source of their prosperity. 

Mrs. Crowther was sorry to lose Isola as a friend and 
protegee. Her daughters were furious at the slight implied 
in this gradual dropping away. They passed Mrs. Disney 
and her sister-in-law with their noses in the air, as they went 


142 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


from the church porch to their carriage. They cut them 
ostentatiously if they met on the quiet country roads. 
Mrs. Crowther would still stop to speak and shake hands 
albeit she urged no further invitations. 

And while the gulf widened betw'een the great house am 
the small one the glorious Cornish summer waned, anc. 
slowly, slowly, melted away, lingering very late in that fair 
western land, which was full of flowers even when the home 
counties were being withered and blackened by the first 
frosts. At last came winter, and the gradual turn of the 
year; short days slowly lengthening out by leisurely sunsets; 
pale snowdrops glimmering in the borders; and then the 
gold of crocuses and the bright blue of the Siberian bell- 
flower in patches of vivid color; and then hyacinths and 
tulips, primroses on every bank, narcissus and jonquil in 
every garden ; and by and by the full glory of bluebell and 
hawthorn blossom. And anon in the middle of May came 
an event in which all the interests of Colonel Disney’s life 
seemed to culminate. In that balmy Maytime Isola’s first 
born son came into the world, and Isola’s young life hovered 
at the gate of death, in so terrible an uncertainty that Martin 
Disney’s hair grew gray while he awaited the issue of the 
contest between youth and weakness. 

For more than a week after the birth of her baby Isola’s 
condition had satisfied the trained nurse and the kindly 
doctor. She was very white and weak, and she showed less 
interest in her baby than most young mothers — a fact which 
Mr. Baynham ascribed to over-education. 

“The young women of the present day aren’t half such 
good mothers as those I used to attend when I began prac- 
tice,’’ he said discontentedly. “Their heads are stuffed 
with poetry, and such like. They’re nervous and fanciful 
— and the upshot of it all is that babies have to be wet- 
nursed of brought up by hand. If I had the making of & 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


143 


New Republic I wouldn’t allow any married woman the run 
of a library until she had reared the last of her babies. 
What does a young married woman want with book learn- 
ing? She ought to have enough to do to look after her 
husband and her nursery.” 

Before the baby son was a fortnight old, fever super- 
vened, and Isola’s state gave poor Mr. Baynham the deep- 
est alarm. A hospital nurse was sent for to assist the 
established custodian; and a great authority was brought 
over from Plymouth to approve the village doctor’s treat- 
ment, and to make a trifling alteration in a prescription, 
substituting bromide of sodium for bromide of potassium. 

Many days and nights of delirium followed the physi- 
cian’s visit, a period in which the patient was watched at 
every hour of the day and night; and one of the most con- 
stant watchers through all that dreary time was Martin 
Disney. It was in vain that Allegra and the nurses urged 
him to consider his own health. He would consent only to 
leave the sickroom for briefest intervals of rest. Day after 
day, night after night, he sat in the same chair — an old- 
fashioned armchair, with projecting sides, which almost hid 
him from the patient — beside the bed. He was never in 
the way of the nurse. He was always helpful when a man’s 
help was needed. He was so quiet that it was impossible to 
object to his presence. He was there like a statue of 
patience. No moan escaped his pallid lips; no tear stole 
down his haggard cheek. He sat, and watched, and waited 
for the issue, which was to make him happy, or desolate 
forever. 

All his future was involved in that issue. He looked with 
a faint smile upon the pink little baby face, when they 
brought his son to him. No one would have dared to sug- 
gest that he should take care of himself and be comforted 
for that little one’s sake. They all knew that his first born 


144 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


was as nothing to him. All his love and care, all his hopes 
and his fears were centered in the wife who lay upon yonder 
bed, with glassy eyes and babbling lips, a wanderer in a 
shadowy world full of torturing images — fountains of bub- 
bling water which she longed to drink — great black serpents, 
which came crawling in at the window, and creeping nearer, 
nearer to her bed — wriggling, hideous forms that hemmed 
her in on every side— giant staircases that she was always 
trying to climb — mammoth caves in which she lost herself, 
fifty times bigger and more awful than those serpentine 
caverns near the Lizard, which she and Allegra had explored 
in the previous autumn — steeper, stonier than the tall cliffs 
and pinnacled rocks above Bedruthan sands. 

Day after day, night after night, Martin Disney sat in his 
place and listened to those ravings of a mind distraught. 
He could not keep himself from trying to follow her in that 
labyrinth of disconnected fancies — visions of shapeless hor- 
ror, trouble, confusion — a wild babbling of numbers, prat- 
tling of millions, billions, trillions — as if her days of health 
and sense had been spent in the calculations of a Roths- 
child, she who could scarcely reckon the simplest account 
in a tradesman’s book. 

What had she to do with this torturing recital of thousands 
and millions, this everlasting heaping up of figures? 

Then, at another period of that long struggle between life 
and death, reason and unreason, she had a ghastly vision of 
two children, squatting on each side of her bed, one living, 
the other dead, a grisly child with throat cut from ear to ear. 
Again and again she conjured them to take away those babies 
— the dead child whose horrid aspect froze her blood — the 
livypg child which grinned and made faces at her. 

Once and once only during that season of delirium the 
elder of the nurses carried the baby to her bedside, the tiny 
and delicate form in snowy cambric and lace, a little roseate 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


145 


face, on which the first glimmer of intelligence was already 
dawning, sweet blue eyes that smiled at the light, rosebud 
lips that invited kisses. The nurse took the infant to the 
side of the bed, and asked the young mother to look at him. 
Those fever-bright eyes stared at the sweet small face with 
a gaze of ever-growing horror ; and then, with a wild shriek, 
Isola clasped her hands before her eyes, and drew herself 
cowering to the further side of the bed. 

“The dead child,” she cried. “Why do you show me 
that dead child? Don’t you see his throat streaming with 
blood?” 

It was a case in which the nurses had no easy duty by day 
or night; and there were times when Disney insisted that the 
night nurse should have extra rest, while he kept guard. 

“But if she should be very bad, sir, you might not be 
able to manage.” 

“Oh, yes, I should. My sister is a very light sleeper. 
She would come to me in a moment, and she has a great 
deal of influence with my wife.” 

This was true. From the beginning of evil Allegra’s 
presence had exercised a soothing power. She had been 
able to lull the patient to sleep sometimes, when opiates had 
failed to produce even fitful slumber. Isola was calmer and 
less restless when her sister-in-law was by her side. 

In those long night watches, sometimes in solitude, Mar- 
tin Disney had ample leisure in which to ponder upon his 
wedded life, and to consider how far the hopes with which 
he had entered upon that life had been realized. The retro- 
spect left him melancholy, and with a latent sense of loss 
and disappointment; and yet he told himself again and 
again that he did ill to be dissatisfied, that Providence had 
dealt kindly with him. 

At five and forty years of age, he, Martin Disney, of mod- 
est fortune and social status, and of no especial claim to be 


146 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


admired, intellectual or physical, had won the hand of a lovely 
and interesting girl. He had been so bewildered and over- 
come by the delight of his conquest that he had entered upon 
no laborious process of self-examination before he took to 
himself this fair and winning partner. It had been enough 
for him that she came to him willingly, lovingly, in all truth 
and girlish simplicity, loyal as she was pure. He had never 
asked himself could such an attachment last — on her side? 
It had been enough for him that the love existed. It would 
be his duty and his delight to strengthen the bond, to draw 
that fair spirit into closer union with his own. He had felt 
no shadow of fear for the future. Once having won her, it 
must be easy to keep his treasure — easy for him who would 
so faithfully guard and cherish this priceless gift of a benign 
Providence. He was a man of deep religious feeling — a man 
who recognized in good and evil, in joy and in sorrow, the 
dealings of an Almighty God with his short-sighted creat- 
ures. He accepted Isola’s love as the crowning blessing of 
his life — accepted it in fear and trembling, knowing the in- 
stability of all mortal joys; but he had never feared the loss 
of her love. 

Yet now, sitting in the deep of night beside that bed 
which might be the bed of death, he told himself that his 
wife’s love was lost to him, had been lost from the hour of 
his return to Trelasco, when he went back to her with all 
the enthusiasm of a lover forgetful of his mature years, of 
his long experience of life— hard fighting, hard knocks of 
all kinds in the great life battle. 

He had gone back to her as Leander to Hero, a boy in 
heart and hopefulness; and what had he found in her? A 
placid, obedient wife, gentle almost to apathy, but with a 
strain of melancholy underlying all their relations which his 
devoted love could not conquer. 

To all his interrogations her answer had been the same. 


ALL ALONG TILE RIVER. 


*47 


She was not unhappy. She had everything in life that she 
desired. There was nothing that he could give her, no 
change in their existence, which could be brought about 
that would add to her content. All this should mean domes- 
tic peace, a heart at ease ; yet all this was unsatisfying to 
Martin Disney; for his instinct told him that his wife was 
not happy — that the element of gladness was, for some 
inscrutable reason, banished from her life. 

She had seemed happier, or at least the little home had 
been brighter and gayer after Allegra’s coming; but as the 
time wore on it became clear to him that the life and gayety 
were all in Allegra herself, and that Isola was spiritless and 
depressed. It was as if the spring of her life had snapped 
suddenly, and left her nerveless and joyless, a submissive, 
unhopeful creature. That sense of disappointment and loss 
which he had dimly felt, even when his home-coming had 
been a new thing, had grown and deepened with the passage 
of time. He had bought his land; he had added to the 
space and comfort of his house; he had enlarged the stables, 
and bought a couple of hunters and a cob for harness ; and, 
while these things had been doing, the activity of his days, 
the pleasant fuss and labor of arrangement and supervision, 
had occupied his mind so pleasantly as to stifle those grow- 
ing doubts for the time being. But when all was done, when 
the vine and the fig tree had been planted, and he sat down 
to take his ease in their shelter, then he began to feel very 
keenly that his wife’s part in all that he had done was the 
part of submission only. She liked this or that because he 
liked it. She was content, and that was all. And the line 
between contentment and resignation is so faint a demarca- 
tion that it seemed to him sometimes as if she suffered life 
rather than lived — suffered life as holy women suffer some 
slow, wasting disease, in meek subjection to a mysterious 
decree. 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER . 


148 

He sat beside her bed, while she battled w r ith all the 
demons of delirium; and he wondered whether, when she 
had been at her best — when her mind had been brightest and 
clearest — whether she had been any nearer to him than she 
was now in her madness; whether he had known any more 
of her inner self — the mystery of her heart and conscience 
— than he knew now, while those wild eyes stared at him 
without sight or knowledge. 

One summer morning, as he sat alone in his watch in that 
dull interval between darkness and dawn, the visions of the 
wandering mind took a more consecutive form than usual. 
She fancied herself in a storm at sea. The waves were roll- 
ing mountains high — were bearing down upon her with 
threatenings of instant death. She feared, and yet she 
courted them. In one minute she was recoiling from the 
w T ild rush of waters, clinging to the brass rail at the head of 
her bed, crouching against the wall as if to save herself from 
an advancing wave; and in the next minute she sprang out 
of bed, and rushed to the open window, wanting to throw 
herself out of it. Disney was only just quick enough to 
seize her in his arms, and carry her back to bed. He held 
her there, battling with him in a vehement effort to escape 
from his restraining arms. 

“Why do you stop me?” she cried, looking at him 
fiercely with her distracted eyes. “What else is there for 
me? What other refuge? what other hope? Let me go! 
let me go! Cruel ! cruel! cruel ! Let me throw myself into 
the sea! Don’t you understand? Oh, cruel! cruel! Cold 
and wicked, shameless and cruel! There is nothing else — 
only that refuge left! Let me hide myself in death; let me 
hide — hide!” 

Her voice rose to a shriek ; and both the nurse and Al- 
legra came rushing in. The faint white dawn shone upon 
her livid face, and on the scarlet spot upon each hollow 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 149 

cheek; her eyes stared wildly, starting from their sockets in 
that paroxysm of her madness. 

Only a few days after that night of terror Isola was lying 
calm as a child. The fever had gone down — the enfeebled 
constitution had at last answered to the influence of medi- 
cine: and gradually, like the slow lifting of the darkness 
after a long night of cloud and fog, consciousness and 
reason came back. Sleep soothed the strained and weary 
nerves; and the exhausted frame, which a few days before 
had seemed endowed with a superhuman strength, lay like 
a log upon the bed of sickness. 

Recovery was slow, but there was no relapse. Slow as 
the dawning of day to the tired watcher, after the long, 
blank night, there came the dawn of maternal love. The 
young mother began to take delight in her child; and it was 
rapture to Martin Disney to see her sitting opposite him 
under the tulip tree, in the low Madeira chair, with her 
baby in her lap. Allegra vied with her in her devotion to 
that over-praised infant; while the Shah and Tim, of the 
same opinion for the first time in their lives, were almost 
rabid with jealousy. 

They all lived in the garden in that happy summer season, 
as they had done the year before when Allegra first came 
among them. It was in the garden they received their vis- 
itors, and it was there that Mr. Colfox came at least thrice 
a week, upon the flimsiest pretexts of parish business, to 
drink tea poured out for him by Allegra’s helpful hands, 
while Isola sat quietly by, listening to their talk, with her 
baby lying in her lap. 

Allegra had taken kindly to parish work; and, in Mr. Col- 
fox’s own phraseology, was a tower of strength to him in his 
labors among the poor of Trelasco. She had started a series 
of mothers’ meetings in the winter afternoons, and had read 
to the women and girls while they worked, helping them a 


ALL ALONG THE El FEE. 


150 

good deal with their work into the bargain. She had done 
wonders at penny readings, singing, reciting, drawing light- 
ning caricatures of local celebrities with a bit of chalk upon 
a blackboard. Her portrait of Vansittart Crowther had 
been applauded to the echo, although it was not a flattering 
portrait. She had visited the sick; she had taught in the 
night school. The curate had been enthusiastic in his 
appreciation of her, and his praises had been listened to 
contemptuously by the two Misses Crowther, each of whom 
at different periods had taken up these good works, only to 
drop them again after the briefest effort. 

“She will get tired as soon as we did,” said Alicia, 
“when she finds out how impossible these creatures are — 
unless she has an ulterior motive.’' 

“What ulterior motive should she have?” asked Colfox 
bluntly. 

‘ ‘Who can tell? She may want to get herself talked about. 
As Miss Leland, of the Angler’s Rest, a sort of useful com- 
panion to her brother’s wife, she is a nobody. If she can 
get a reputation for piety and philanthropy, that will be 
better than nothing. Or she may be only angling for a 
husband.” 

“If you knew her as well as I do you would know that 
she is above all such trivial and self-seeking motives ; and 
that she is good to these people because her heart has gone 
out to them.” 

“Ah, but you see we don’t know her. Her brother has 
chosen to hold himself aloof from Glenaveril; and I must 
say I am very glad he has taken that line — for more than 
one reason. ” 

‘‘If any of your reasons concern Miss Leland you are 
very much mistaken in underrating her. You could not 
have had a more delightful companion,” said Mr. Colfox, 
with some warmth. 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


151 

“Oh, we all know that you have exalted her into a heroine 
— a St. John’s Wood St. Helena. But she is a little too 
unconventional for my taste; though I certainly would 
rather be intimate with her than with her sister-in-law.” 

“Surely you have no fault to find with that most gentle 
creature?” 

“She is just a little too gentle for my taste,” replied 
Alicia, who usually took upon herself all expression of opin- 
ion, while Belinda fanned herself languidly, in an aesthetic 
attitude, feeling that her chief mission in this life was to sit 
still and look like la belle dame sans i7ierci. “She is just as 
much too quiet as Miss Leland is too boisterous. I have 
no liking for pensive young women who cast down their 
eyelids at the slightest provocation, and are only animated 
when they are flirting.” 

“The tongue is a little member,” quoted Mr. Colfox, 
taking up his hat, and holding out his hand in adieu. 

He was very unceremonious to these fair young parish- 
ioners of his, and talked to them as freely as if he had been 
an old French Abbe in a country village. It is needless to 
say that they valued his opinion so much the more because 
he was entirely unaffected by their wealth or their good 
looks. They were naturally aggrieved at his marked 
admiration for Miss Leland. 

Those ripe months of hares and vintage, July, August, 
and September, passed like a blissful dream for Martin 
Disney. He had snatched his darling from the jaws of 
death. He had her once more — fair to look upon, with 
sweet smiling mouth and pensive eyes; and she was so 
tender and so loving to him, in fond gratitude for his devo- 
tion during her long malady, so seemingly happy in their 
mutual love for their child, that he forgot all those aching 
fears which had gnawed his heart while he sat by her pillow 
through the long, anxious nights — forgot that he had ever 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


doubted her, or remembered his doubts only to laugh at 
himself as a morbid, jealous fool. Could he doubt her, 
who was candor and innocence personified? Could he think 
for an instant that all those sweet, loving ways and looks of 
hers which beautified his commonplace existence were so 
much acting — and that her heart was not his? No! True 
love has an unmistakable language; and true love spoke to 
him in every word and tone of his wife’s. 

The child made so tender and close a bond between them. 
Both lives were seemingly bound and entwined about this 
fragile life of Isola’s first born. Mr. Baynham had no rea- 
son now to complain of his patient’s want of the maternal 
instinct. He had rather to expostulate and to restrain her 
in her devotion to the child. He had to reprove her for her 
sleepless nights and morbid anxieties. 

“Do you think your baby will grow any the faster or 
stronger for your lying awake half the night worrying your- 
self about him?’’ said the doctor, with his cheery bluntness. 

‘ ‘He has a capital nurse — one of those excellent cow-women, 
who are specially created to rear other people’s babies; and 
he has a doctor who is not quite a fool about infant mala- 
dies. Read your novels, Mrs. Disney, and keep up your 
good looks; or else twenty years hence you will see your 
son blushing when he hears his mother mistaken for his 
grandmother.’’ 

After giving his patient this advice, Mr. Baynham told 
his wife, in confidence, that, were anything to happen to the 
little one, Isola Disney would go off her head. 

“I’m afraid she is sadly hysterical,’’ replied Mrs. Bayn- 
ham. “I am very fond of her, you know, Tom; but I have 
never been able to understand her. I can’t make out a 
young woman who has a pretty house and an indulgent 
husband, and who never seems quite happy.’’ 

“Every woman can’t have your genial disposition, Belle,’’ 


ALL ALONG THE EL VET. 153 

answered the doctor admiringly. “Perpetual sunshine is 
the rarest thing in nature.” 

The early western harvest had been gathered in. Upland 
and valley in that undulating land were clothed with the 
dull, tawny hue of the stubble. Here and there the plow 
horses were moving slowly along the red ridges on the steep 
hillside. No touch of frost had dulled the rich hues of the 
autumnal flowers, and the red carnations still glowed in 
every cottage garden, while the pale pink trusses of the 
hydrangea filled all the shrubberies with beauty. A keener 
breath came up at eventide from the salt sea beyond Point 
Neptune, and wilder winds crept across the inland valleys 
with the oncoming of night. Summer and the swallows 
were gone. October, a balmy season for the most part, was 
at hand; and there were no more tea drinkings and after- 
noon gossipings at the Angler’s Rest. The lamps were 
lighted before dinner. The evenings were spent in the old 
library and the new drawing room; the new room commu- 
nicating with the old one by a curtained archway, so that of 
a night the curtains could be drawn back and Martin Disney 
could sit among his books by the fireplace in the library, 
and yet be within conversational reach of Isola and Allegra 
in the drawing room, where they had piano and table-easel, 
work baskets, and occupations of all kinds. 

Mr. Colfox sometimes dropped in of an evening, on par- 
ish business, of course, took a cup of coffee, listened while 
Allegra played one of Mozart’s sonatas or sang a song by 
Gluck or Haydn or Handel. Mr. Colfox was not one of the 
advanced people who despise Mozart or Handel. Nor did 
he look down upon Haydn. Indeed, he sat and stroked his 
thin legs with a sheepish appreciation, wrinkling up his loose 
trousers, and showing a large amount of wrinkled stocking, 
while Allegra sang “My mother bids me bind my hair,” in 


154 


ALL ALONG THE LIVER. 


her clear, strong mezzo-soprano, which was of infinite use 
to him in his choir. 

He told everybody that Martin Disney’s was an ideal 
household — a home into which it was a privilege to be 
admitted. 

“I feel as if I never knew the beauty of domestic life till 
I knew the Angler’s Rest,” he said one evening after dinner 
at Glenaveril, when he and the village doctor had accepted 
one of Mr. Crowther’s pressing invitations to what he called 
‘‘pot luck”: the pot luck of the man whose spirit burns 
within him at the thought of his hundred-guinea cook, and 
whose pride is most intolerable when it apes humility. 

‘‘Really, now,” said Mr. Crowther, ‘‘you surprise me, 
for I have always fancied there w r as a screw loose there.” 

‘‘What does that expression imply, Mr. Crowther?” 
asked the curate coldly. 

‘‘Oh, I don’t know! Nothing specific; only one’s notion 
of an ideal home doesn’t generally take the shape of a beau- 
tiful girl of twenty married to a man of fifty. The disparity 
is just twice as much as it ought to be.” 

• ‘‘Upon my soul,” cried the curate, ‘‘I don’t believe that 
wedded love is affected by any difference of years. Desde- 
mona loved Othello, who was a man of mature age ” 

‘‘And black,” interrupted Mr. Crowther, with a coarse 
laugh. ‘‘Well, let us be thankful that Colonel Disney is not 
a nigger; and that there is so much the less danger of a 
burst-up at the Angler’s Rest. And now, Baynham, with 
regard to this footpath across the wood, who the deuce will 
be injured if I shut it up?” 

“A good many people; and the people I think you would 
least like to injure,” answered the doctor sturdily. ‘‘Old 
people, and feeble, ailing people who find the walk to church 
quite far enough with the help of that short cut.” 

‘‘Short cut be hanged,” cried Mr. Crowther, helping 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


155 


himself to a bumper of port, and passing on the decanter 
with hospitable emphasis. “It can’t make a difference of a 
hundred yards.” 

“It does make a difference of over a quarter of a mile — 
and the proof is that everybody uses it, and that it goes by 
the name of the Church path. I wouldn’t try to stop it, if 
I were you, Mr. Crowther. You are a popular man in the 
parish, for you — well, you have spent a heap of money in 
# this place, and you subscribe liberally to all our charities 
and what not; but, I don’t mind telling you, if you were to 
try and shut off that old footpath across your wood, you’d 
be about the most unpopular man within a radius of ten 
miles.” 

“Don’t talk about trying to shut it off, man,” said Mr. 
Crowther arrogantly. “If I choose to lock the gates 
to-morrow, I shall do it, and ask nobody’s leave. The 
wood is my wood, and there’s no clause in my title deeds 
as to any right of way through it; and I don’t see why I 
am to have my hazel bushes pulled about, and my chestnut 
trees damaged by a pack of idle boys, under the pretense of 
church-going. There’s the Queen’s highway for ’em, 

d n ’em,” cried Mr. Crowther, growing more insolent, 

and he gulped his fifth glass of Sandemann. “If that aint 
good enough, let ’em go to the Ranters’ Chapel at the other 
end of the village.” 

“I thought you were a stanch Conservative, Mr. Crow- 
ther, and an upholder of Church and State,” said Mr. Col- 
fox. “Am I to believe my ears when I hear you advocating 
the Ranters’ Chapel?” 

“It’s good enough for such rabble as that, sir. What 
does it matter where they go?” 

“Prosecute the boys for trespass, if you like,” said the 
doctor; “though I doubt if you’ll get a magistrate to impose 
more than a nominal fine for the offense of taking a handful 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER . 


156 

of nuts in a wood that has been open ever since I began to 
walk, and Heaven knows how many years before; but let 
the old gaffers and goodies creep to church by the shortest 
path that can take them there. They’ll have to travel by 
the Queen’s highway later, when they go to the churchyard 
— but then they’ll be carried. Don’t interfere with the 
privileges of the poor, Mr. Crowther. No one ever did 
that yet and went scot free. There’s always somebody to 
take up the cudgels for them.” 

“I don’t care a doit for anybody’s cudgels, Baynham. I 
shall have a look at my title deeds to-morrow; and if there’s 
no stipulation about the right of way, you’ll find the gates 
locked next Sunday morning.” 

Sunday morning came, and the gates at each end of the 
old footpath were still open, and nothing had come of 
Mr.Crowther’s threat. The gates had stood open so long, 
and were so old and rotten, their lower timbers so imbedded 
in the soft, oozy soil, so entangled and overgrown with 
foxglove and fern, so incrusted with moss and lichen that 
it is doubtful if anybody could have closed them. They 
seemed as much rooted in the ground as the great brown fir 
trunks which rose in rugged majesty beside them. 


CHAPTER XI. 

“ WHERE THE COLD SEA RAVES.” 

In the keen, fresh October afternoons, there was no walk 
Allegra loved better than the walk to Neptune Point, and 
higher up by winding footpaths to the Rashleigh Mau- 
soleum, fitting sepulcher for a race born and bred within 
reach of the salt sea foam ; a stately tomb perched on a 
rocky pinnacle at the end of a promontory, like a sea-bird’s 
nest overhanging the wave. 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER . 157 

Allegra was in raptures with that strange resting 
place. 

“ I like it ever so much better than your Cockneyfied 
flower-garden cemetery,” she exclaimed. “ Think how 
grand it must be to lie for ever within the sound of the sea — 
the terrible, inscrutable sea, whose anger means death — the 
calm, summer sea, whose waves come dancing up the sands, 
singing sweet lullabies. I wonder whether the Rashleighs 
would let me have a little grave of my own somewhere 
among these crags and hillocks — a modest little grave, 
hidden under wild foliage, which nobody would ever notice ? 
Only I should hear the sea just as well as they do in their 
marble tomb.” 

“ O Allegra, how can you talk so lightly of death ! ” 
said Isola, shocked at this levity. “ To me it is always 
dreadful to think of — and yet it must come.” 

“ Poor child ! ” said Allegra, with infinite pity, putting 
her arm round her sister-in-law's slighter figure, as they 
stood by the railing of the Mausoleum, in the loveliness of 
an October sunset. 

The sun had just gone down, veiled in autumnal haze ; 
and behind the long ridge of waters beyond the Dodman 
there glowed the deep crimson of the western sky. East- 
ward above the Polruan hills the full moon moved slowly 
upward, amid dark masses of cloud which melted and 
rolled away before her oncoming, till all the sky became of 
one dark azure. The two girls went down the hill in 
silence, Allegra holding Isota’s arm, linked with her own, 
steadying those weaker footsteps with the strength of her 
own firm movements. The difference between the two in 
physical force was no less marked than the difference in 
their mental characteristics ; and Allegra’s love for her 
sister-in-law was tempered with a tender compassion for 
something so much weaker than herself. 


ALL ALONG THE ELVER. 


153 

“ Poor child ! ’’she repeated, as they moved slowly down- 
ward on the steep, narrow path, “ and you really shudder at 
the thought of death ? I don’t. I have only a vast 
curiosity. Do you remember that definition of Sir Thomas 
Browne’s which Martin read to us once — ‘ Death is the 
Lucina of Life.’ Death only opens the door of the hidden 
worlds which are waiting for all of us to discover. It is 
only an appalling name for a new birth. I love to dream 
about the infinite possibilities of the future — just as a boy 
might dream of the time when he should become a man. 
Look, look, Isa, there’s a yacht coming in. Isn’t it a lovely 
sight ? ” 

It was a long, narrow vessel, with all her canvas spread, 
gleaming with a silvery whiteness in the moonlight. Slowly 
and with majestic motion she swept round toward Neptune 
Point and the mouth of the harbor. There was only the 
lightest wind, and the waves were breaking gently on the 
rocks at the base of the promontory — a night as calm and 
fair as June. 

“ Look,” repeated Allegra, “isn’t she lovely? like a fairy 
boat. Whose yacht can she be, I wonder ? She looks like 
a racer, doesn’t she ? ” 

Isola did not answer. She had seen such a yacht three 
years ago ; had seen such a long, narrow hull lying in the 
harbor under repairs ; had seen the same craft sailing out 
to Mevagissey on a trial trip in the wintry sunlight. Doubt- 
less there were many yachts in this world of just the same 
build and character. 

They stood at an angle of the hill-path looking up the 
river, and saw the yacht take in her canvas as she came into 
the haven under the hill. That sheltered harbor, with its 
two rivers cleaving the hills asunder, one winding away to 
the right, toward Lerrin, the other to the left toward Trelasco 
and Lostwithiel. It looked so perfect a place of shelter, so 


ALL ALONG TILE RIVER. 


*59 


utterly safe from tempest or foul weather ; and yet there 
were seasons when the wild sea winds came sweeping up 
the deep valleys, and all the storms of the Atlantic seemed 
at play in that narrow gorge. To-night the atmosphere was 
unusually calm, and Isola could hear the sailors singing at 
their work. 

Slowly, slowly the two young women went down the hill, 
Allegra full of speculation and wonderment about the 
unknown vessel, Isola curiously silent. As they neared the 
hotel a man landed from a dingey, and came briskly up 
the slippery, hard causeway : a tall, slim figure in the vivid 
moonlight, loose limbed, loosely clad, moving with easiest 
motion. 

Isola turned sick at the sight of him. She stopped, 
helplessly, hopelessly, and stood staring straight before her, 
watching him as he came nearer and nearer, nearer and 
nearer — like some awful figure in a nightmare dream, when 
the feet of the dreamer seem frozen to the ground, and 
flesh and blood seem changed to ice and stone. 

He came nearer, looked at them, and passed them by — 
passed as one who knew them not, and was but faintly 
curious about them. He passed and walked quickly up 
toward the point, with the rapid swinging movements of 
one who was glad to tread the solid earth. 

No, it was not Lostwithiel. She had thought at first that no 
one else could look so like him at so short a distance ; no one 
else could have that tall, slender figure, and easy, buoyant 
walk. But the face she saw in the moonlight was not his. 
It was like, but not the same : darker, with larger features, 
a face of less delicacy and distinction ; but O God ! how 
like the eyes that had looked at her with that brief glance 
of casual inspection were to those other eyes that had 
poured their passionate story into her own that unforgotten 
night when she sat out the after-supper waltzes in the ante- 


i6o 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


room at the Talbot. She could not have believed that any 
man living could so recall the man whose name she never 
spoke of her own free will. 

There were some sailors standing about at the top of the 
steep little bit of road leading down to the granite cause- 
way ; and their voices sounded fresh and clear in the still 
evening, mixed with the rippling rush of the water as it 
came running up the stones. The moonlight shone full 
upon one of the men as he_ stood with his face toward the 
sea, and Isola read the name upon the front of his hat. 

“ Vendetta .” 

“ Vendetta ,” cried Allegra, quick to observe the name. 
“ Why, is not that Lord Lostwithiel’s yacht ? ” 

“ Yes — I think so,” faltered Isola. 

“ Then that must have been Lord Lostwithiel who passed 
us just now : and yet you would have known him, wouldn’t 
you ? ” 

“ That was not Lord Lostwithiel.” 

“ A friend of his, I suppose ; such a nice-looking man, 
too. There was something so frank and cheery in his look 
as he just glanced at us both and marched briskly on. 
He did not pay us the compliment of seeming curious. 
I wonder who he is.” 

Isola was wondering about something else. She was 
looking with a frightened gaze across the harbor, toward 
that one break in the long golden trail of the moonbeams 
where the Vendetta cast her shadow on the water. There 
were lamps gleaming brightly here and there upon the 
vessel — a look of occupation. 

“ Is Lord Lostwithiel on board his yacht ? ” Allegra 
asked of one of the sailors, not ashamed to appear inquisi- 
tive. 

“ No, ma’am ; Mr. Hulbert is skipper.” 

“Who is Mr. Hulbert?” 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 161 

“ His lordship’s brother.” 

“Was that he who went up toward the Point just now ?" 

“ Yes, ma’am.” 

“ Is he going to stop here long, do you know ? ” 

“ I don’t think he knows himself, ma’am. It’ll depend 
upon the weather most likely. If we get a fair wind we may 
off to the Lizard at an hour’s notice, and away up north to 
the Hebrides.” 

“ Doesn’t that seem inconsistent ? ” exclaimed Allegra, 
as they walked homeward. “What is the good of coming 
to Cornwall if he wants to go to the Hebrides ? It must 
be very much out of the way.” 

“ He may want to see his old home, perhaps. He was 
born at The Mount, you know.” 

“ Indeed, I don't know anything about him, but I want 
to know ever so much. I call it an interesting face.” 

Allegra was full of animation during the homeward walk. 
A stranger of any kind must needs be a God-send, as 
affording a subject for conversation ; but such a stranger 
as Lostwithiel’s brother offered a theme of strongest inter- 
est. She had heard so much about Lord Lostwithiel ana 
all his works and ways — the pity of it that he did not 
marry ; the still greater pity that he did not live at The 
Mount, and give shooting parties and spend money in the 
neighborhood. She had heard in a less exalted key of his 
lordship’s younger brother, who had fought under Beres- 
ford in Egypt, and who had only lately left the navy. 
What more natural than that such a man should sail his 
brother’s yacht ? 

Captain Hulbert was still unmarried ; but no one talked 
about the pity of that. People took a severely sensible 
view of his case, and were unanimous in the opinion that 
he could not afford to marry, and that any aspiration in 
that line would be criminal on his part. There was an idea 


162 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


at Trelasco that the younger sons of peers of moderate for- 
tune have been specially designed by Providence to keep 
up the race of confirmed bachelors. There must be 
bachelors ; the world cannot get on without them ; society 
requires them as a distinct element in social existence ; and 
it would ill become the offshoots of the peerage to shrink 
from fulfilling their destiny. 

Allegra was not less curious about Captain Hulbert, 
although his celibate mission had been frequently 
expounded to her. She was interested in him because she 
liked his face, because he was Lostwithiel’s brother, because 
he was sailing a very beautiful yacht, because he had 
appeared in her life with a romantic suddenness, sailing out 
of the sea unheralded and unexpected, like a man who had 
dropped from the moon. 

She fell asleep that night wondering if she would ever 
see him again — if the Vendetta would have vanished from 
the harbor to-morrow at noontide, like a boat that had only 
lived in her dreams ; or whether the yacht would still be 
anchored there in the haven under the hill. And, if so, 
whether Captain Hulbert would call at the Angler’s Rest, 
and tell them about Lostwithiel’s South American adven- 
tures, and how he came to be skipper of his brother’s yacht. 

At breakfast next morning, Colonel Disney’s talk was 
chiefly about Captain Hulbert. The colonel had been for 
an early walk, and had seen the Vendetta from the little 
quay at Fowey, by the Mechanics’ Institute, and had heard 
who was the skipper. 

“ I remember him when he and his brother were at Eton 
together — nice boys — capital boys, both of them — but I 
liked Jack Hulbert better than Lostwithiel. He was 
franker, more spontaneous, and impulsive. Yes, Jack was 
my favorite, and everybody else’s favorite, I think, when 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


1 63 


the two were boys. I saw very little of them after they 
grew up. I was away with my regiment, and Jack was 
away with his ship, and Lostwithiel was wandering up and 
down the earth, like Satan. I left a card for Captain Hul- 
bert at the club, asking him to dinner this evening. You 
don’t mind, do you, Isola ? ” 

Isola had no objection to offer, and Allegra was delighted 
at the prospect of seeing more of the man with the nice 
frank countenance, and that seafaring air which most 
women like. 

“ I am a dreadful person for being influenced by first 
impressions,” she said, “ and that one glance at Captain 
Hulbert in the moonlight assures me that I shall like him.” 

“Don’t like him too well,” said Martin laughing, “for 
I’m afraid he’s a detrimental, and would make even a worse 
match than Colfox, who may be a bishop one day, while 
Hulbert has left the navy, and is never likely to be any- 
thing.” 

“ Match ! detrimental ! ” cried Allegra indignantly. 
“ Can it be my brother who talks in such a vulgar strain ? 
As if a woman could not look at a man without thinking of 
marrying him ! ” 

“ Some women can’t,” answered Martin. “ With them 
every free man is a possible husband — indeed, I believe 
there are some who cannot look at a married man without 
estimating the chances of the divorce court — if the man is 
what they call a catch.” 

“ That is your Indian experience ! ” exclaimed Allegra 
scornfully. “ I have heard that India is a sink of iniquity.” 

She went about her day’s varied work as usual — curious 
to see the new acquaintance — yet in nowise excited. Vivid 
and animated, enthusiastic and energetic as she was in all 
her thoughts and ways, gushing sentimentality made no 
part of Miss Leland’s character. Life at Trelasco flowed 


164 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


with such an even monotony, there was such an utter dearth 
of new interests, that it was only natural that a girl of viva- 
cious temper should be curious about newcomers. At St. 
John’s Wood every day had brought some new element 
into the lives of the students, and almost every day had 
brought a new pupil, drawn thither by the growing renown 
of the master-pupils from the uttermost ends of the earth 
sometimes, pupils of swart complexion speaking unknown 
tongues, pupils patrician and pupils plebeian, each and all 
conforming to the same stringent rules of art, spending- 
weeks and months in the shading of a brace of plums or 
a bunch of grapes, from a plaster cast, and toiling slowly 
up the gradual ascent which leads to the Royal Academy 
and the gold medal. Many there were who sickened at 
the slow rate of progress and who fell away. Only the 
faithful remained. And this going and coming, this strife 
between faith and unfaith, patience and impatience, had 
made a perpetual movement in the life of the great school 
— to say nothing of such bodily activities as lawn tennis, for 
which the master had provided a court — a court for his 
girl pupils, be it noted, where they played among them- 
selves, as if they had been so many collegians in the college 
of Tennyson’s “ Princess.” 

Allegra had liked her life at the great art school, but 
she had never regretted its abandonment. She loved her 
brother and her brother’s wife better even than she loved 
art. It was only now and then that she felt that her 
existence at Trelasco was as monotonous as the flow of the 
river going up and coming down day by day between Lost- 
withiel and the sea. 

She spent the hours between breakfast and luncheon 
hard at work in her painting room — a little room with a 
large window facing northward. She had the coachman’s 
girl and boy for her models, and was engaged upon a little 


ALL ALONG THE ELVER. 


165 

water color picture after the school of Mrs. Allingham, a 
little picture which told its story with touching simplicity. 

It was not the first picture of the kind she had painted. 
Several of her works had been exhibited at the minor 
galleries which are hospitable to the newcomer in the world 
of art ; and two small pictures had been bought at prices 
which seemed to promise her an easy road to fortune. 

The coachman’s children profited greatly by this new 
profession which had been devised for them. Allegra made 
their frocks in her leisure hours, when the active fingers 
must have something to do, while the active tongue ran on 
gayly in happy talk with Martin and Isola. Allegra made 
up to her little models for their hours of enforced idle- 
ness by extra tuitiou, which kept them ahead of most of 
the other pupils in the village school ; and Allegra cup- 
plied them with pocket money. 

“ I don’t know however the children got on before Miss 
Leland came,” said the coachman’s wife. “ They seem to 
look to her for everything.” 

Allegra had other models, village children, and village 
girls — her beauty-girl, a baker's daughter with a splendid 
semi-Greek face, like Mrs. Langtry’s, whom she dressed up 
in certain cast-off finery of her own, and painted in her 
genre pictures, now in this attitude, and now in that, im- 
parting an air of distinction which elevated the Cornish 
blonde into a patrician. She it was, this baker’s fair-haired 
daughter, who stood for Allegra’s successful picture — “ A 
daughter of the gods, divinely tall,” a little bit of finished 
painting which had brought the painter five and thirty 
guineas — boundless wealth as it seemed to her — and ever 
so many commissions. 

Art, even in despondency and failure, is a consolation ; 
art successful is an intoxicating delight. Allegra was as 
happy a young woman as could be found in Cornwall that 


i66 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


day, when she shut her color-box, dismissed her little 
maiden, and ran down to lunch, where she found Isola 
more silent than usual, and made amends by her own 
light-hearted chatter for the morning’s absorption over the 
easel. After lunch she ran off to the village to pay her 
parish visits to the sick and old ; and on her way to an 
outlying cottage she met Mr. Colfox, who immediately 
turned to accompany her, a way he had, but a way to which 
she never attached any significance. He was a clever, 
well-read man, of somewhat original temper, who had to 
pass most of his life among unlettered or dull people ; 
therefore it surprised Allegra in no wise that he should 
like to talk to her. A bright, attractive girl of three and 
twenty is very unsuspicious about the feelings of a homely 
looking man at least a dozen years her senior. 

“ Your brother has been good enough to ask me to din- 
ner,” he said, after a little talk about the goodies and their 
ailments. “ I met him at the club this morning.” 

“ He wants you to meet Captain Hulbert. Perhaps you 
know him already ? ” 

“ No, he has not been here within my time. He only left 
the navy a year ago, and he was generally stationed at the 
utmost ends of the earth, keeping guard over our remote 
possessions. Have you seen him ?” 

“ Only for an instant. He passed my sister and me yes- 
terday evening in the moonlight. I thought he looked a 
nice person ; but I think women have a natural leaning 
toward sailors. I could never imagine a seaman telling a 
falsehood or doing a mean action.” 

“ There is a kind of open air manner which suggests 
truthfulness,” admitted Mr. Colfax. “ Yet there have been 
dark deeds done by sailors ; there have been black sheep 
even in the Queen’s navy. However, I believe Captain 
Hulbert is worthy of your good opinion. I have never 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER . 


167 


heard anybody speak against him ; and the old people who 
knew him as a lad seem to have liked him better than Lord 
Lostwithiel.” 

“Do tell me your opinion of Lord Lostwithiel. I am 
very curious about him. Mr. Crowther talked of him so 
much the night we were at Glenaveril.” 

“ Mr. Crowther loves a lord.” 

“ Please satisfy my curiosity. Is he really such a fasci- 
nating personage ? ” 

“ He has very pleasant manners. I don’t know what 
constitutes fascination in a man, though 1 know pretty well 
what it means in a woman. Lord Lostwithiel’s manners 
are chiefly distinguished by repose without languor or affec- 
tation, and by an interest in other people so cleverly simu- 
lated that it deceives everybody. One finds him out by the 
way in which people boast of his friendship. He cannot be 
so attached to all the world. He has a manner which is 
generally described as sympathetic.” 

“ Mr. Crowther enlarged a good deal upon his lordship’s 
admiration for my sister at the hunt ball. Was that so 
very marked ? ” 

Mr. Colfox colored violently at this direct question ; 
assuredly not easy to answer truthfully without hazard of 
offense. 

“ I was not at the ball. I — I heard people talk a little, 
in the way people talk of everything, about Lostwithiel’s 
attention to Mrs. Disney, and about her prettiness : they all 
agreed that, if not the loveliest woman in the room, she was 
at least the most interesting.” 

“ It was very natural that he should admire her; but I 
don’t think Martin liked Mr. Crowther’s talking about it in 
that way, at the dinner table. The man is horridly under- 
bred. Has Lord Lostwithiel what you call — ” she hesi- 
tated a little — “ a good character ? ” 


i6S 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


“ I don’t know about the present. I have heard that in 
the past his reputation was not altogether good.” 

“I understand,” said Allegra quickly. “The admira- 
tion of such a man is an insult ; and that is why Mr. Crow- 
ther harped upon the fact. I am sure he is a malevolent 
man.” 

“ Don’t be hard upon him, Miss Leland* I believe he 
has only the misfortune to be a cad : a cad by birth, educa- 
tion, and associations. Don’t fling your stone at such a 
man : consider what an unhappy fate it is.” 

“ Oh, but he does not think himself unhappy. He is 
bursting with self-importance and the pride of riches. He 
is the typical rich man of the Psalmist. He must be the 
happiest man in Trelasco: a thick-skinned man whom noth- 
ing can hurt.” 

“ I am sorry you think so badly of poor Mr. Crowther, 
because I am really attached to his wife. She is one of 
the best women I know.” 

“ So my sister tells me, and I was very much taken with 
her myself ; but one cannot afford to be friendly with Mrs. 
Crowther at the cost of knowing her husband.” 

She spoke with some touch of the insolence of youth, 
which sets so high a value upon its own opinions and its 
own independence, and looks upon all the rest of humanity 
as upon a lower plane. And this arrogant youth, which 
thinks so meanly of thejnultitude, will make its own excep- 
tions; and reverence its chosen ideals with a blind hero-wor- 
ship, for its love is always an upward-looking love, “ the 
desire of the moth for the star.” 

Mr. Colfox sighed, and smiled at the same moment a sad 
little half-cynical smile. He was thinking how impos- 
sible it was to refrain from admiring this bright, outspoken 
girl, with her quick intellect and her artistic instincts : so 
spiritual, so unworldly, and fresh as an April morning — 


ALL ALONG THE ELVER. 169 

how impossible not to admire, how difficult not to love her, 
and how futile to love. 

He thought of himself with scathing self-contempt — mid- 
dle-aged, homely of feature and of figure, with nothing to 
recommend him except good birth, a small independence — 
just so much as enabled him to live where he pleased and 
serve whom he would, without reference to the stipend 
attached to the cure ; and a little rusty, dry-as-dust 
learning. Nothing more than this ; and he wanted to win 
and wed a girl whose image never recurred to his mind 
without the suggestion of a rose garden, or a summer 
morning. Yes, she reminded him of morning and dewy 
red roses : those old-fashioned heavy red roses, round as 
a cup, and breathing sweetest, purest perfume. 

He jogged on by her side in silence, and only awoke 
from his reverie to bid her good-by at the gate of a 
cottage garden, in the lane that led up the hill to Tyward- 
reath. 


CHAPTER XII. 

“far too far off for thought or any prayer.” 

Mr. Colfox and Allegra met again in the drawing room 
of the Angler’s Rest at a quarter to eight. He was the first 
to arrive, and Isola had not yet appeared. Martin Disney 
was at his post in front of the library fireplace, library and 
drawing room making one spacious room, lighted with 
candles here and there, and with one large shaded 
lamp on a table near the piano. Isola had been suffering 
from headache, and had been late in dressing. Cap- 
tain Hulbert had been in the room nearly ten minutes be- 
fore his hostess appeared, looking pale and ill in her black 
lace gown, and with an anxious expression in her eyes. 


170 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


He had been introduced to Allegra, and was talking to her 
as if he had known her for years, when his attention was 
called off by Isola’s appearance, and his introduction to 
her. 

“ Was this Martin Disney’s wife,” he thought wonderingly, 
“ such a girlish fragile creature, so unlike the woman he had 
pictured to himself. Strange that Lostwithiel should not 
have told him of her delicate prettiness, seeing that he was 
a connoisseur in beauty, and hypercritical.” 

“This is just the kind of beauty he would admire,” 
thought Hulbert, “ something out of the common — a pale, 
spiritual beauty — not dependent upon coloring, or even 
upon regularity of feature, the kind of thing one calls soul, 
not having found a better name for it.” 

They went in to dinner presently, Captain Hulbert and 
Isola, Mr. Colfox and Allegra. The table was a small 
oval, at which five people made a snug little party. There 
was a central mass of white chrysanthemums, a cheerful 
glow of colored Venetian glass, delicatest pink and jade- 
green, under the light of a hanging moderator lamp. John 
Hulbert looked around him with a pleased expression, 
taking in the flowers, the glass, the delicate cream-white 
china, the lamplight, everything ; and then the two fair 
young faces, one pale and pensive, the other aglow with the 
delight of life, eagerly expectant of new ideas. 

They talked of the Vendetta and the places at which she 
had touched lately. Captain Hulbert had spent his summer 
on the Eastern Liguria, between Genoa and Civita 
Vecchia. 

“ Wasn’t it the wrong time of year for Italy ? ” asked 
Mr. Colfox. 

“ No, it is the season of seasons in the land of the sun. 
If you want to enjoy a southern country, go there in the 
summer. The south is made for summer, her houses are 


ALL ALONG TILE RIVER . 


I?* 

built for hot weather, her streets are planned for shade in 
midsummer ; her wines, her food, her manners and customs 
have all been made for summer time — not for winter. If 
you want to know Italy at her worst go there in cold 
weather.” 

“ Where did you leave Lord Lostwithiel ? ” Disney asked 
presently. 

“ I left him nowhere. He left me to rove about Southern 
Europe — left me on his way to Carinthia. He is like the 
wandering Jew. He used to be mad about yachting ; but he 
got sick of the Vendetta all of a sudden, and handed her 
over to me. Very generous on his part; but the boat is 
something of a white elephant for a man of my small means. 
I wanted him to sell her. Wouldn’t hear of it. To let 
her. Not to be thought of. 1 I’ll lend her to you,’ he said, 
‘ and you shall keep her as long as you like ; sink her, if 
you like, provided you don’t go down in her. She is not 
a lucky boat.’ ” 

“ Have you sailed her long ? ” 

“ Nearly a year ; and I love her as if she were bone of my 
bone, and flesh of my flesh. Let us all go for a sail to-mor- 
row, Mrs. Disney, to Mevagissey or thereabouts. We could 
do a little fishing. It will be capital fun. What do you 
say, Miss Leland ? ” 

“ I should adore it,” said Allegra, beaming at him. 
“ The sea is my passion, and I think it is my sister’s pas- 
sion, too. We are a kind of amphibious creatures, living 
more on water than on land. We venture as far as we dare 
in a row-boat ; but, oh, that is such a little way.” 

“ I’m afraid sometimes you will venture so far that you 
won’t be able to get back again, and will find yourselves 
drifting away to America,” said her brother. 

Isola answered never a word until Captain Hulbert 
addressed her pointedly for the second time. 


172 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


“ Will you go, Mrs. Disney — may we make up the 
party ? ” 

“ I would rather not,” she answered, without looking at 
him. 

“ But why not ? Are you such a bad sailor, in spite of 
all Miss Leland says of you ? ” 

“I am a pretty good sailor in a row-boat, but not in a 
yacht. And I hate fishing — such a slow, weary business. 
I would rather not go.” 

“ I am so sorry ; but you must not be worried about it,” 
said Hulbert kindly, seeing the growing distress in her 
countenance. “ We will not go in for fishing or excursions; 
but you and Miss Leland will at least come to afternoon 
tea on the Vendetta — to afternoon tea in the harbor. There 
used to be a comic song when I was a boy — ‘ Come and 
Drink Tea in the Arbor.’ You must come to the arbor 
with an aspirate. It is not so rustic or sentimental; but 
there will be no earwigs or creeping things to drop into 
your teacup. Mr. Colfox, you will come, won’t you ? ” 

“ I shall be delighted,” answered the curate. “ I have a 
sneaking kindness for all yachts.” 

The conversation drifted back to Lostwithiel and his 
works and ways presently. 

“ When he went home three years ago he gave me to 
understand he was going to settle down at The Mount, and 
spend the rest of his days in peace and respectability,” said 
Captain Hulbert. “ Yet, shortly afterward, he and his 
yacht were off again like the Flying Dutchman , and the next 
I heard of him was at Leghorn, and six months later he 
was coasting off Algiers and Tangier ; and the following 
spring he was in South America ; and the Vendetta was laid 
up at Marseilles, where he begged me to go and look after 
her, and take her to myself until such time as he should 
want her again. I was with him for a few days at Leghorn, 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER . 


173 


where he seemed ill and out of spirits. I don’t think you 
can have used him over well in this part of the world, Mrs. 
Disney,” he added, half in jest. “ I fancy some of you 
must have snubbed him severely, or his tenants must have 
worried him by their complaints and exactions. I could 
not get him to talk about his life at The Mount. He 
seemed to have taken a disgust for the old home.” 

“ You must put that down to his roving temper,” said 
Disney ; “ for, although I was away at the time, I can 
answer for it there was no such thing as snubbing in the 
case. Your brother is the only peer in these parts ; and, 
from the way people talk about him, he might be the only 
peer in Great Britain — the Alpha and Omega of Debrett. 
Our parvenu neighbor, Mr. Crowther, talked of him one 
night with a slavish rapture which made me sick. I am a 
Tory by association and instinct; but I can’t stand the vul- 
garian’s worship of a lord.” 

Isola looked at her sister-in-law, and they both rose at 
this moment, the Church almost tumbling over the Navy in 
eagerness to open the door, Navy winning by a neck. 

They were not long alone in the drawing room, not more 
than the space of a single cigarette, before the men fol- 
lowed. Then came music and a good deal of talk in the 
long, low, spacious room, which looked so bright and 
homely by candlelight, with all its tokens of domestic and 
intellectual life. 

“ What a capital quarter-deck this is,” cried John Hul- 
bert, after pacing up and down while he listened, and 
talked, and laughed at Allegra’s little jokes about the nar- 
rowness of village life. “ It is delightful to stretch one’s 
legs in such a room as this after six months upon an eighty- 
ton yacht.” 

“ You will have room enough to stretch your legs at The 
Mount,” said Disney. 


174 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


Captain Hulbert had announced his intention of spending 
a week or two under the family roof-tree while the Vendetta 
underwent some slight repairs and renovations. 

“ Room enough and to spare,” he said. “ I shan’t feel 
half so jovial walking up and down those grim old rooms 
as I feel here. I shall fancy a ghost pacing behind me, 
clump, clump, clump — a slow, solemn footstep — only the 
echo of my own tread, perhaps ; but I shall never know, for 
I shall be afraid to look round.” 

“ You ought not to make sport of weak people’s fancies, 
for I am sure you don’t believe in ghosts,” said Allegra, 
leaning with one elbow on the piano, turning over pieces of 
music absently, a gracious figure in a dark green velvet 
gown, cut just low enough to show the fine curves of a full, 
round throat, white and smooth as ivory. 

“ Not believe in ghosts ? Did you ever know a sailor who 
wasn’t superstitious ? We are too often alone with the sea 
and the stars to be quite free from spectral fancies, 
Miss Leland. I can see in your eyes as you look at me 
this moment that you believe in ghosts — believe and trem- 
ble. Tell me now, candidly — when do you most fear them ? 
At what hour of the day or night does the unreal seem 
nearest to you ? ” 

“ I don’t know,” she faltered, turning over the loose 
music with a faintly tremulous gesture, while Isola sat 
by the piano, touching the notes dumbly now and then. 

“ Is it at midnight — in the gloaming — in the chill myster- 
ious dawn ? You won’t answer ! Shall I guess ? If you 
are like me, it is in broad daylight — between two and 
three in the afternoon — when the servants are all idling af- 
ter their dinner, and the house is silent. You are alone in 
a big, bright room, perhaps, with another room opening out 
of it, and a door a long way off. You sit writing at 
your table, and you feel all at once that the room is 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


175 


haunted — there must be something or someone stealing in 
at that remotest door. You daren’t look round. You 
go to the window and look out into garden or street — 
for a town house may be just as ghastly as a country one — 
and then with a great effort you turn slowly round and face 
your terror, in the broad, garish sunlight, in the business 
hours of the day. There is nothing there, of course ; 
but the feeling has not been the less vivid. I know I shall 
be specter-hunting at The Mount. You must all come and 
scare away the shadows. Mr. Colfox, are you fond of bil- 
liards ? ” 

“ I own to a liking for the game. I play with Mr. 
Crowther and his youngest daughter whenever I dine at 
Glenaveril. Alicia is a very fine player, for a girl, and 
her father plays a good game.” 

“ Then you will come up to The Mount two or three 
times a week and play with me, I hope. There’s a fine 
Thurston table. It may be a little out of order, but we must 
make the best of it — and there’s plenty of sound claret 
in the cellars, to say nothing of a keg or two of Schie- 
dam that I sent home from The Hague. ” 

“ Mr. Colfox will not make much impression either on 
your claret or your schnapps,” said Disney, laughing. “ He 
is almost as temperate as one of those terrible anchorites in 
the novel we were reading the other day — ‘ Homo Sum.’ ” 

“ I am glad you put in the qualifying ‘ almost,’ ” said the 
curate, “ for I hope to taste Captain Hulbert’s Schiedam.” 

The captain expatiated upon what his three new friends 
— and his one old friend, Martin Disney — were to do to 
cheer him in his solitude at The Mount. 

“ There is nothing of the anchorite about me,” he said. 
“ I love society, I love life and movement, I love bright 
faces.” 

He would not leave until they had all promised to take 


176 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


tea on board the yacht on the following afternoon, an en- 
gagement which was kept by Allegra and the colonel ; but 
not by Isola, whose headache was worse after the little din- 
ner party ; nor by the curate, who had parish business to 
detain him on shore. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

“ UNDER THE PINE-WOOD, BLIND WITH BOUGHS.” 

If Isola had any disinclination to visit Captain Hulbert’s 
yacht, her headache only served to defer the evil day ; 
for after the first tea-drinking came other invitations and 
other arrangements, fishing parties, luncheons off Meva- 
gissey, entertainments in which Isola must needs share 
when she saw her husband and his sister bent upon the en- 
joyment of the hour, delighted with the Vendetta and her 
warm-hearted skipper. 

They were not John Hulbert’s only friends in the neigh- 
borhood. Everybody seemed glad to welcome the rover 
to his native village. Almost everybody had known him 
in his boyhood ; and there was a general consensus of 
opinion that he was a much better fellow than his brother. 
He was less courted ; but he was better liked. There had 
been a touch of cynicism about Lostwithiel which 
frightened matter-of-fact country people. 

“ One could never feel sure he wasn’t laughing in his 
sleeve at our rustic ignorance,” said Mrs. Baynham. “ I 
am more at my ease with Captain Hulbert.” 

So the brief Indian summer passed in pleasant idlesse 
on a tranquil sea. The equinoctial gales had not begun to 
rage yet. There was a lull before the coming of the great 
winds which were to blow good ships on shore, and startle 
sleepers in the dead of night. All now was fair and placid 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


177 


— sunlit waters, golden evenings. They spent one bright, 
balmy day off Mevagissey, a day which was like a long 
dream to Isola, as she sat on deck in a low folding-chair, 
wrapped in a great feathery rug from the South Sea Islands, 
with her languid head reclining against a plush-covered 
cushion, one of the many effeminate luxuries which 
abounded in the cabin below. Everybody else was intent 
upon the nets. Everybody else was full of interest, and 
movement, and expectation ; but she sat apart from all, 
with her ivory knitting-pins lying idle in her lap, amid a 
soft little mass of white wool, which her industry was to 
convert into a garment for the baby. 

Allegra was enraptured with the yacht. She would fain 
have taken Isola down to the cabins below, to explore 
their wonders of luxury and contrivance, so much comfort 
and elegance in so restricted an area ; but Isola refused to 
leave the deck. 

“ I hate all cabins,” she said. “ They are always suffo- 
catingly hot.” 

So Mrs. Baynham went below with Allegra, and they two 
explored the two principal cabins with wondering admira- 
tion, and even peeped into the cooking-house, and the odd 
little places where steward and sailors contrived to bestow 
themselves. 

The chief cabin, saloon, or whatever one liked to call it, 
was as daintily decorated as a lady’s boudoir. There were 
nests of richly bound books, Oriental bronzes, and all kinds 
of continental pottery, Japanese and Indian embroideries, 
Venetian mirrors, quaint little carved cupboards for wine 
or cigars. Every corner and cranny was utilized. 

“ What a delicious drawing room ! ” cried Allegra. “I 
could live here all my life. Fancy, how delightful ! A 
floating life. No such thing as satiety. One might open 
one’s eyes every morning on a fresh coast, glorified, as one 


i 7 8 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER . 


sees it across the bright blue water. To explore the Medi- 
terranean, for instance, floating from city to city — the cities 
of the past, the cities of the Gospel, the shores that were 
trodden by the feet of St. Paul and his companions — the 
cities of the Christian saints and martyrs, the island birth- 
places of Greek gods and heroes. Think, Mrs. Baynham ! 
A yacht like this is a master-key to open all the gateways 
of the world." 

“ I would rather have my own cozy little cottage on terra 
firma,” answered the doctor’s wife in a matter-of-fact mood ; 
but this speech of Allegra f s set the good lady pondering 
upon the possibility of John Hulbert falling in love with 
this bright, clever girl, and making her mistress of his 
brother’s yacht. 

Her friendly fancy depicted the village wedding, and 
those two going forth over the great waters to spend their 
honeymoon amid the wonder-world of the Mediterranean, 
which the banker’s daughter knew only in her atlas. 

“He can’t be rich,’’ she thought, “but he must have a 
comfortable income. I know his mother had money. And 
Allegra can earn a good deal by her painting. She wouldn’t 
be an expensive wife. We ought all to do our best to 
bring it about. A girl has so few chances in such a place 
as Trelasco. She might almost as well be in a convent.’’ 

Mrs. Baynham was at heart a matchmaker, like most 
motherly women whom fate has left childless. She was 
very fond of Allegra, who was so much brighter and more 
companionable than Isola, so much more responsive to 
kindness and affection. As she sat on deck in the wester- 
ing sunlight, somewhat comatose after a copious luncheon, 
Mrs. Baynham’s idea of helping Allegra took the form of 
a dinner party which she had long been meditating, her 
modest return for numerous dinners which she had eaten 
at Glenaveril and at the Angler’s Rest. She considered 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


179 


that three or four times a year it behooved her to make a 
serious effort in the way of hospitality — a substantial and, 
elaborate dinner, in which no good things in season should 
be spared, and which should be served with all due cere- 
mony. The time was at hand when such a dinner would 
in a manner fall due ; and she determined to hasten the 
date with a view to Allegra’s interests. 

“ Captain Hulbert is sure to be off again before long,” 
she told herself, “ so every evening they can spend 
together is of importance. I’m sure he is inclined to fall 
in love with her already.” 

There was not much doubt about his feelings as he 
stood by Allegra in the stern, directing the movements of 
her bare active hands while she hauled in the net ; not 
much doubt that he was as deep in love as a man well can 
be after a fortnight’s acquaintance. He did not make any 
secret of his bondage, but let his eyes tell all the world 
that this girl was for him “the world’s one woman.” 

The invitation from Mrs. Baynham was delivered by 
post next morning, as ceremonious a card as if the place 
were Mayfair, and the invitor and invitees had not met 
since last season. A copper-plate card with name and 
address filled in by the lady’s pen, a detail which distin- 
guished her modest invitation from the Glenaveril cards, of 
which there were a variety, for at homes, tennis, dinner, 
luncheon, to accept, and to decline. A fortnight’s notice 
marked the dignity of the occasion — the hour the orthodox 
quarter to eight. 

“We can’t refuse, Isola,” said Disney, when his wife 
handed him the card, “although my past experience 
assures me that the evening will be a trifle heavy. Why 
will people in small houses insist upon giving dinner 
parties, instead of having their friends in instalments ? 
When we go to dine with the Baynhams we go for love of 


180 all along tee river . 

them, not the people they bring together ; and yet they 
insist upon seating twelve in a room that will just com- 
fortably hold eight. It is all vanity and confusion of spirit.” 

“ But Mrs. Baynham is so happy when she is giving 
a real dinner party. I don’t think we can refuse, can we, 
Allegra? ” asked Isola. 

“ Mrs. Baynham is a darling, and I wouldn’t vex her for 
worlds,” replied her sister-in-law. “And in a place like 
this one can’t pretend a prior engagement, unless it were 
in the moon.” 

The invitation was accepted forthwith, and when 
Captain Hulbert dropped in at tea-time it was discovered 
theft he, too, had been asked, and that he meant to accept, 
if his friends at the Angler’s Rest were to be there. 

A thunderbolt fell upon the little village on the follow- 
ing Sunday. When the old men and women, creeping to 
church a little in advance of younger legs, came to the 
Church path, they found the gate locked against them ; 
locked and barricaded with bars which looked as if they 
were meant to last till the final cataclysm. The poor old 
creatures looked up wonderingly at a newly painted board, 
on which the more intelligent among them spelt out the 
following legend : 

“ This wood is the private property of J. Vansittart 
Crowther, Esq. Trespassers will be prosecuted.” 

Martin Disney and his wife and sister came up when a 
little crowd of men, women, and children, numbering about 
thirty, had assembled round the gate, all in their Sunday 
best. 

“ What’s the meaning of this ? ” asked Disney. 

“Ah, colonel, that’s what we all want to know,” replied 
old Manley, the village carpenter, a bent and venerable 
figure, long past work. “I’m over eighty, but I never 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


181 

remember that gate being locked as long as I have lived at 
Trelasco ; and that’s all my life, colonel. There’s always 
been a right of way through that wood.” 

“And there always shall be,” answered Martin Disney. 
“We won’t take any violent measures to-day, my friends — 
first because it is Sunday, and next because one should 
always try fair means before one tries foul. I shall write 
to Mr. Crowther to-morrow, asking him civilly to open that 
gate. If he refuses, I’ll have it opened for him, and I’ll 
take the consequences of the act. Now, my good friends, 
you’d better go to church by the road. You’ll get there 
after the service has begun. Wait till the congregation 
are standing up, and then go into church all together, so 
that everybody may understand why and by whose fault 
it is that you are late.” 

The appearance of this large contingent after the first 
lesson created considerable surprise, and much turning of 
heads and rustling of bonnet strings in the echoing old 
stone church. Mr. Crowther sat in his pew of state on 
one side of the chancel, and felt that the war had begun. 
Everybody was against him in the matter, he knew ; but 
he wanted to demonstrate the rich man’s right to do what 
he liked with the things which he had bought. The wood 
was his, and he did not mean to let the whole parish tramp 
across it. 

He received a stiffly polite letter from Colonel Disney, 
requesting him to re-open the Church path without loss of 
time, and informing him of the great inconvenience caused 
to the older and weaker members of the congregation by 
the illegal closing of the path during church hours. 

Mr. Crowther sent his reply by the colonel’s messenger. 
He asserted his right to shut up the wood, which formed a 
part of his estate, and positively refused to re-open the 
gate at either end of the footpath in question. 


182 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


Captain Hulbert dropped in at his usual hour, eager to 
know the progress of the fight. Fight there must be, he 
was assured, having seen something of Mr. Crowther’s 
bull-dog temper. Then, in the drawing room of the 
Angler’s Rest, there was hatched a terrible plot — a Cati- 
line conspiracy in a tea-cup — Allegra listening and applaud- 
ing while the two men plotted. 

That night, when the village was hushed in sleep, a boat- 
ful of sailors landed at the little hard near the railway 
station at Fowey, and half a dozen stalwart blue-jackets 
might have been seen tramping along the old railway track 
to Trelasco, one carrying a crowbar, another a carpenter’s 
basket. And under the autumn stars that night, in the 
woods of Glenaveril, while Vinsittart Crowther slept the 
sleep of the just man who payeth his twenty shillings in 
the pound, there rose the sound of a sea-song and the 
cheery chorus of the sailors, with a rhythmic accompani- 
ment of hammering ; and lo, when the October morning 
visited those yellowing woods, and when Mr. Crowther’s 
gamekeeper went on his morning round, the gate at either 
end of the Church path was wrenched off its hinges, and 
was lying on the ground. Staple and bolt, padlock and 
iron hinges, were lying among the dewy dock leaves and 
the yellowing fern ; and there was free passage between 
the village of Trelasco and the house of God. 

Vinsittart Crowther went to Plymouth by the first train 
that could convey him, and there consulted the lawyer 
most in renown among the citizens ; and that gentleman, 
after due thought and consideration, informed him that the 
closing of such an old-established right of way as that of 
the Church path was more than any land-owner durst at- 
tempt. Whatever omissions there might be in the title 
deeds, he had bought the estate subject to that old right of 
way, which had been enjoyed by the parish from time 


ALL ALONG THE EL FEE. 183 

immemorial. He could no more shut it off than he could 
wall out the sky. 

“ But I can punish the person who pulled the locks off 
my gates, I conclude,” said Mr. Crowther, swelling with 
indignation. 

“ That, of course, is a distinct outrage, for which you 
may obtain redress, if you can find out who did it.” 

“ Very little difficulty about that, I take it. The act 
must have been instigated by the writer of that impertinent 
letter.” 

He pointed to Martin Disney’s letter, lying open on 
the solicitor’s table. 

“ Very probably. But you will have to be sure of prov- 
ing his share in the act if you mean to take proceedings 
against him.” 

Vansittart Crowther was furious. How was he to bring 
the responsibility of this outrage home to anybody, when 
the deed had been done in the dead of night, and no 
mortal eye had seen the depredators at their felonious 
work ? His locks and bolts and hinges, the best of their 
kind that Sheffield could supply, had been mocked at and 
made as naught ; and all his dumb dogs of serving men 
and women had been lying in their too comfortable beds, 
and had heard never a sound of hammer clinking or crow- 
bar striking on iron. There had not been so much as a 
kitchen maid afflicted with the toothache, and lying wake- 
ful, to overhear a sound of that villainous deed. 

Mr. Crowther sent for the police authorities of Fowey, 
and set his wrongs before them. 

“ I will give fifty pounds reward to the man who will get 
me credible evidence as to the person who planned that 
outrage,” he said. And the next day there were bills 
pasted against divers doors at Fowey and Trelasco, against 
the Mechanics’ Institute, and against that curious old 


184 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER . 


oaken door of a mediaeval building opposite the club, which 
may once have been a donjon, and in sundry other con- 
spicuous places, beginning with “ Whereas,” and ending 
with Vinsittart Crowther’s signature. 

Nothing came of this splendid offer, though there were 
plenty of people in the district to whom fifty pounds would 
have seemed a fortune. Whether no one had seen the 
crew of the Vendetta landing or re-embarking in the night- 
time, or whether some wakeful eyes had seen, whose owners 
would not betray the doers of a deed done in a good cause, 
still remains unknown. Captain Hulbert was enchanted at 
the speedy success of the conspiracy, and went to church 
next Sunday by the now notorious footpath, along which 
an unusual procession of villagers came streaming in the 
crisp, clear air, proud to assert a right that had been so 
boldly maintained by their unnamed but not unknown 
champion. Everyone felt very sure that the flinging open 
of the gates had been somehow brought about by Martin 
Disney — Martin, whose grandfather they could some of 
them remember, when he came home after the long war with 
the French, and took up his abode in an old house among 
the hills, and married a fair young wife. That had hap- 
pened sixty-five years ago ; but there were those in the vil- 
lage who could remember handsome Major Disney, with only 
one arm, and a face bronzed by the sun that shines on the 
banks of the Douro. 

Captain Hulbert went by the Church path that morning, 
although it took him ever so far out of his way. He wanted 
to walk to church with the Disney family, in order to talk 
over their victory ; and the Disneys seemed to-day to 
resolve themselves into one ; and that one was Allegra 
Leland ; for she and the captain walked ahead and dis- 
coursed gayly, perhaps in too exultant and worldly a vein 
for pious Church people ; but, at worst, their exultation was 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 185 

in a good cause ; for the horn of the lowly was exalted, and 
the pride of the rich man was brought low. 

“Do you think he will be at church ?" asked Allegra, 
the pronoun standing for Mr. Crowther. 

“Of course he will. He must brazen out the position. 
He will be there, no doubt, gnashing his teeth behind his 
prayer book. If angry looks could kill, you and I would 
be as dead as Ananias and Sapphira before the end of the 
service." 

“ Poor, silly man, why did he want to shut up the foot- 
path ?" speculated Allegra. 

“ Only to show his importance — to make himself felt in 
the neighborhood. They wouldn’t have him for their repre- 
sentative, in spite of his money, and his grand Church and 
State principles, and all the Primrose Leaguing of his 
womankind ; and so he turns savage and wants to make 
himself disagreeable." 

Yes, it was true that Mr. Crowther had stood for Lost- 
withiel on three separate occasions, and with equal unsuc- 
cess on each. They may have embittered him. If the 
anger of slighted beauty is a furious thing, no less bitter 
is the sting of wounded vanity in man. 

And then the parson and the doctor had told Mr. Crow- 
ther that he could not close his wood against the public ; 
an all-sufficient reason why he should make the attempt. 

The Crowther family were in the chancel pew in full 
force. Allegra thought she detected signs of distress in 
Mrs. Crowther’s countenance ; but the daughters went 
through the service with their noses in the air, and were 
more than usually vivacious and conversational among their 
friends between the church porch and the landau which 
bore them away to Glenaveril, and the sumptuous boredom 
of Sunday luncheon. 

Merrily went the short autumn days on board the Ven - 


1 86 all along the river. 

detta, and merrily went the tea-drinkings and talk in the 
drawing room at the Angler’s Rest. Mrs. Disney did not 
often join the yachting expeditions east or west. The sea 
made her head ache, she told them ; but Mrs. Baynham, 
who loved pleasure of any kind, was always ready to cha- 
peron Allegra, and Isola welcomed the wanderers to the 
cheery fireside and the friendly five o’clock tea. She spent 
her own days mostly in the society of her baby, with whom 
she seemed to hold a kind of mysterious commune. She 
had no idea of amusing him as the nurse had, none of those 
conventional tricks and movements which are offered to 
generation after generation of infants ; but the child would 
lie in her lap for hours while she sang to him in her low 
sweet voice the French songs she had learnt in her early 
girlhood — songs that the peasants of Brittany sing, some of 
them — and others of a somewhat loftier strain. She would 
sing him little bits of Mozart : those immortal melodies, of 
inexhaustible sweetness and ineffable pathos, music wedded 
with smiles and tears, melody interwoven with such melt- 
ing tenderness as thrills the coldest heart. There was a 
gentle happiness in these solitary hours which the young 
mother spent with her child ; and Martin Disney, coming 
into the room unawares, sometimes stood for a minute or 
so in loving contemplation of that domestic picture — the 
young fair face with its long oval form and delicate fea- 
tures ; the pensive gravity of the large violet eyes, and 
mournful droop of the thin, flower-like lips. He had seen 
such a face on canvas, the ideal Madonna of Raphael, with 
just that subdued blond coloring and pale auburn hair, 
and just that thoughtful expression. 

His heart swelled with gladness and gratitude as he con- 
templated mother and son. Yes, the child had made all 
things well in his home. 

Those aching doubts which he felt as he watched beside 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER . 


187 


his wife’s sick-bed had vanished like clouds before the sun. 
Who could doubt the happiness of the mother, absorbed in 
her first-born ? Who could doubt the love of the wife, 
looking up at her husband with such tender welcome as he 
bent over her shoulder to take the little folded fist in his, 
unfold the crumpled fingers, and press them to his lips? 

“ You are very fond of him, Martin ? ” she asked, with 
an often repeated inquiry, knowing what the answer would 
be. 

“Foad of him! After you he is all that I have in this 
world — except Allegra, who will float away into a world of 
her own by and by, and belong to us no more.” 

“ After me ! He ought to be first, Martin — your son, 
your heir, your second self in the days to come. He ought 
to have the first place in your heart, Martin, for he is your 
future.” 

“ No one is first but you.” 

He dropped the little crumpled hand, and took his wife’s 
head between his hands, and lifted the fair young forehead, 
looking down at it fondly before he stooped to kiss the soft 
clustering hair and penciled brows and ivory temples, with 
more than a lover’s passion. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

“ OH, ME, THAT I SHOULD EVER SEE THE LIGHT.” 

The Baynhams’ dinner party was a function to be 
anticipated with horror, and undergone with resignation. 
For the first week after the acceptance of the invitation the 
ceremony had seemed so far off that it could be talked 
about lightly, and even made an occasion for mirth — 
Allegra giving her own little sketch of what a dinner at 
Myrtle Lodge would be like — the drawing room with its 


i8S 


ALL ALONG THE RLVER. 


wealth of chair-backs and photograph albums, and the 
water color landscapes which Mrs. Baynham had painted 
while she was at a finishing school at Plymouth, never hav- 
ing touched brush or pencil since, and Mrs. Baynham’s 
rosy-cheeked nieces from Truro, who always appeared on 
the scene of any festivity. Yes, one could tell beforehand 
what the entertainment would be like. 

One thing they did not know, however, Mrs. Baynham 
having been discreetly silent on the subject. They did not 
know that they were to meet the Glenaveril family in full 
force, the doctor’s wife being of opinion that a friendly 
dinner party was the panacea for all parish quarrels and 
small antagonisms, and that by judiciously bringing the 
Crowthers and the Disneys together at a well-spread board, 
and in the genial atmosphere of her unspacious drawing 
room she could bring about an end of the feud, or tacit 
coldness, which had divided the Angler’s Rest and Glen- 
averil since Colonel Disney’s home-coming. It was a dis- 
appointment to this worthy woman to see Vansittart 
Crowther, when Colonel and Mrs. Disney were announced, 
start and glare as if a mad dog had been brought into the 
room ; but she was relieved at seeing the easy nod which 
the colonel bestowed upon his vanquished foe, and the 
friendly hand which good Mrs. Crowther held out to Isola, 
who paled, and blushed, and all but wept at the meeting 
with that cordial matron. 

“ I don’t know why you never come to see me,” said Mrs. 
Crowther confidentially, having made room for Isola upon 
a very pretentious and uncomfortable sofa of the cabriole 
period, a sofa with a sloping seat and a stately back in three 
oval divisions, heavily framed in carved walnut : a back 
against which it was an agony to lean, a seat upon which it 
was a struggle to sit. “ But I don’t see why we shouldn’t 
be friends when we do happen to meet.” 


ALL ALONG THE RLVER. 189 

“ Dear Mrs. Crowther, we are always friends. I shall 
never forget your kindness to me.” 

“ There, there ! you’re a tender-hearted soul, I know. It 
grieved me so not to go and see you when you were ill, 
and not to pay attention to your baby. Such a sweet little 
fellow, too. I’ve given him many a kiss on the sly when 
I’ve met him and his nurse in the lanes. I suppose Mr. 
Crowther and the colonel don’t hitch their horses very well 
together. That’s at the bottom of it all, no doubt. But as 
for you and me, Isola, I hope we shall always be good 
friends.” 

This confidential talk between the two women, observed 
by Mrs. Baynham out of the corner of her eye, augured 
well ; but Mr. Crowther had not left off glaring, and a glare 
in those protruding eyeballs was awful. He usurped the 
hearthrug, as he laid down the law about the political situ- 
ation and the impending ruin of the country. 

“ A feeble policy never maintained the prestige of any 
country, sir,” he told Captain Pentreath, the half-pay bach- 
elor, who was devoted to fishing, and cared very little 
whether his country had prestige or shuffled on without it, 
so long as fish would bite. “ We lost our prestige when we 
lost Beaconsfield, and with our prestige we are losing 
our influence. The continental powers leave us out 
of their calculations. The neutral policy of the last ten 
years has stultified the triumph of British arms from Marl- 
borough to Wellington. The day will come, sir, when the 
world will cease to believe in the history of those magnifi- 
cent campaigns. People will say : * These are idle tradi- 
tions. England could never have been a warlike nation.’ ” 

Captain Pentreath tried to look interested, but was 
obviously indifferent to the opinion of future ages, and 
intent upon watching Allegra, looking her handsomest in a 
yellow silk gown, and deep in talk with Captain Hulbert, 


190 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


who leaned his tall form against Mrs. Baynham’s cottage 
piano, which, with a view to artistic effect, had been draped 
with striped Indian stuffs, and wheeled into a position that 
made the room more difficult of navigation. 

One only of the rosy-cheeked nieces was allowed to 
appear at the dinner table ; firstly, because the table was a 
tight fit for twelve, and, secondly, because a thirteenth 
would have excited superstitious fears. The younger 
sister, whom people asked about with tender solicitude, 
was to be on view afterward, when she would take the bass 
to her sister’s treble in the famous overture to Zampa, 
which, although not exactly a novelty, may be relied upon 
to open a musical evening with iclat. 

Everyone had arrived, and, after a chilling delay, Potts, 
the local fishmonger, who had been a butler, and who went 
out to wait at dinner parties, and was as familiar a figure 
as a saddle of mutton, or a cod’s head and shoulders, made 
his solemn announcement, and with an anxious mind, Mrs. 
Baynham saw her guests parade across the narrow hall, 
somewhat overfurnished with stags’ heads, barometers, gig- 
whips, and umbrella-stands, to the dining room, while a hot 
blast of roast meat and game burst fiercely from the adja- 
cent kitchen. 

Mrs. Baynham had allotted Isola to Mr. Crowther, de- 
termined to carry out her idea of bringing about a friendly 
feeling. Mr. Baynham took Mrs. Crowther, and Captain 
Pentreath had the privilege of escorting Belinda, whose 
sentiments and airs and graces of every kind he knew by 
heart. There was no more excitement in such companion- 
ship than in going in to dinner with his grandmother. 
What is the use of being brought in continual association 
with a handsome heiress if you know yourself a detrimental ? 

“ She would no more look at me as a lover than she 
would at a Pariah dog,” said the captain when some ofh- 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 191 

cious boon companion at the club suggested that he should 
enter himself for the Crowther stakes. 

Captain Hulbert was made happy with Allegra, and Col- 
onel Disney was honored by his hostess, to whom strict 
etiquette would have prescribed the peer’s son. There was 
surplus female population in the persons of Alice Crow- 
ther and Mary Baynham, who agreeably adorned each 
side of the table with a little extra sweetness and light ; 
Miss Baynham, buxom and rosy in a white cashmere frock 
which she had grown out of since her last dinner party ; 
Miss Crowther, square shouldered and bony, in a black 
confection by Worth, with a bloated diamond heart making 
a mirage upon a desert waste of chest, it being a point of 
honor with thin girls to be more decolletee than their plumper 
sisters. 

Mrs. Baynham’s conversation at one of her own dinners 
was apt to be somewhat distracted and inconsecutive in 
substance, although she maintained a smiling and delighted 
air all the time, whatever anxiety might be wearing her 
spirit — anxieties about the cooking and the attendance — 
angry wonder at the prolonged absence of the parlor-maid 
— distress at seeing the lobster sauce dragging its slow 
length .along when people had nearly finished the turbot — 
agonizing fears lest the vol au vent should not last out after 
that enormous help taken by Captain Pentreath, in sheer 
absence of mind, perhaps, since he only messed it about on 
his plate, while he bored Miss Crowther with a prosy 
account of his latest victory over an obstinate demon of 
the Jack family — “ such a devil of a fellow, three feet long, 
and with jaws like a crocodile.” 

Colonel Disney was almost as inconsecutive and frag- 
mentary in his conversation as his hostess, and did not 
imitate her smiling aspect. He was silent and moody, as 
he had been at the Glenaveril dinner, more than a year 


192 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


ago. That Silenus face bending toward his wife’s ear — 
that confidential air assumed in every look and tone — made 
him furious. He could scarcely sit through the dinner. 
He wounded Mrs. Baynham in her pride of heart as a 
housekeeper by hardly touching her choicest dishes. 

“ Oh, come now, Colonel Disney,” she pleaded, “ you 
must take one of my lobster cromskys. I don’t mind own- 
ing that I made them myself. It is an entree I learned 
from the cook at my own home. My father was always 
particular about his table, and we had a professed cook. 
Please don’t refuse a cromsky.” 

Colonel Disney took the thing on his plate and sat 
frowning at it, while a bustle at the door and a marked rise 
in the temperature indicated the entrance of the pilce de 
resistance , in the shape of a well kept saddle of mutton. 

“ Oh, but you had seen the Vendetta before, hadn’t 
you ? ” asked the oily voice on the other side of the table. 
“You knew all about her. Really, now, Mrs. Disney, was 
that your first visit to Lostwithiel’s yacht ? ” 

Isola looked at the speaker as if he had struck her. 
Great God, how pale she was ! Or was it the reflection of 
the green-apple shade upon the candle in front of her 
which gave her that ghastly look ? 

“ Yes,” she said ; and then added hesitatingly, “ I saw 
the yacht from the harbor, years ago.” 

“ But you were never on board her ? How odd, now. 
I had a notion that you must have seen that pretty cabin, 
and all Lostwithiel’s finical arrangements. He was so proud 
of the Vendetta when he was here. He was always ask- 
ing my girls on board. You remember, Alicia, how Lord 
Lostwithiel used to ask you two girls to tea ? ” 

“ Yes,” answered his daughter, in her hard voice. “ He 
asked us often enough, but mother would not let us go.” 

“ How very severe,” said Captain Hulbert, attracted by 


ALL ALONG THE RLVER. 


193 


the sound of his brother’s name. “ Why do you object to 
a tea-party on the Vendetta , Mrs. Crowther ? Have you a 
prejudice against yachts ? Do you think they are likely to 
go down in harbor, like the poor old Royal George ? ” 

“ Oh, no, I am not afraid of that. Only I liked Lord 
Lostwithiel to come to tea with us at Glenaveril ; and I 
did not think it would be quite the thing for my girls to 
visit a bachelor’s yacht, even if I went with them. People 
at Trelasco are only too ready to make unpleasant remarks. 
They would have said we were running after Lord Lost- 
withiel.” 

“ Oh, but it isn’t the single girls who run after the men 
nowadays,” said Mr. Crowther, with his Silenus grin ; “it’s 
the young married women. They are the sirens.” 

Nobody took any notice of this remark ; and the con- 
versation, which had become general for a minute or two, 
resumed its duologue form. 

Captain Hulbertand Allegra went on with their animated 
discussion as to the author of “ Macbeth ” and “ Hamlet 
and Captain Pentreath took up the thread of his story 
about the obstinate pike ; Alicia talked to the doctor about 
her last day with the harriers ; and Mary Baynham told 
Mrs. Crowther about a church bazaar, which had electrified 
Truro, and at which she had “helped” at somebody else’s 
stall. 

“ It was hard work standing about and trying to sell 
things all day, and persuading stingy old gentlemen to put 
into raffles for talking dolls,” said Miss Baynham, “ I have 
pitied the shop-girls ever since.” 

Mrs. Baynham gave the signal for departure, feeling that 
her dinner, from a material point of view, had been a 
success. The lobster sauce had been backward, and the 
three last people to whom the vol au vent was offered had 
got very little except pie-crust and white sauce, but those 


i 9 4 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


were small blemishes. The mutton and the pheasants had 
been unimpeachable ; and on those substantial elements 
Mrs. Baynham took her stand. She had spared neither 
pains nor money. Her Italian cream was cream, and not 
corn-flour. Her cabinet-pudding was a work of art. She 
felt satisfied with herself, and knew that the doctor would 
approve ; and yet she felt somehow that the moral atmo- 
sphere had not been altogether free from storm-cloud. 
Colonel Disney had looked on at the feast with a gloomy 
countenance ; Mr. Crowther had talked in an unpleasant 
tone. 

“ I am afraid those two will never forget the Church 
path,” she thought, as she set her nieces down to Zampa, 
and then went to inspect the card-table in a snug corner 
near the fire, with its freshly lighted wax candles, and new 
cards placed ready for the good old English game which 
our ancestors called whist. 

Zampa once started meant a noisy evening. Captain 
Pentreath would sing “ The Maid of Llangollen,” and 
“ Drink, puppy, drink.” Mary Baynham would murder 
“ It was a dream,” and screech the higher notes in “ Ruby.” 
Duet would follow solo, and fantasia succeed ballad. Mrs. 
Baynham’s idea of a social gathering being the nearest 
attainable approach to a penny reading. She would have 
had recitations and imitations of popular actors, had there 
been anyone capable of providing that form of amuse- 
ment. 

This evening, however, she failed in getting a quartette 
for whist. Neither Mr. Crowther nor his wife was disposed 
for cards ; Colonel Disney coldly declined ; and it was use- 
less to ask the young people to leave the attractions of 
that woody piano. While she was lamenting this state of 
things, the whist table being usually a feature in her 
drawing room, the Disneys and Allegra bade her good- 


ALL ALONG THE EL FEE. 195 

night, and were gone before she had time to remonstrate 
with them for so early a departure. 

It seemed earlier than it really was, for the dinner had 
been late. Disney’s quick ear had heard the step of his 
favorite horse, punctual as the church clock. He had 
ordered his carriage at half past ten, and at half-past ten 
he and his party left the drawing room, the doctor follow- 
ing to hand the ladies to their carriage, while the colonel 
lighted a cigar on the door-step, preparatory to walking 
home. 

“ It’s a fine night ; I’d rather walk,” he said. 

He walked further than the Angler’s Rest. He walked 
up to the hill where he and Isola had sat in the summer 
sunshine on the day after his home coming. He roamed 
about that wild height for two hours, and the church clock 
struck one while he was in the lane leading down to 
Trelasco. 

“ If that man has any motive for his insolence — if there 
is any secret between him and my wife, I’ll wring the truth 
out of him before he is a day older,” the colonel said to 
himself as he tramped homeward. 

He wrote to Mr. Crowther next morning, requesting the 
favor of half an hour’s private conversation upon a very 
serious matter. He proposed to call on Mr. Crowther at 
twelve o’clock, if that hour would be convenient. The 
bearer of the note would wait for an answer. 

Mr. Crowther replied that he would be happy to see 
Colonel Disney at the hour named. 

The colonel arrived at Glenaveril with military punctu- 
ality, and was forthwith shown into that grandiose apart- 
ment, where all those time honored works which the re- 
spectable family bookseller considers needful to the culture 
of the country gentleman, were arranged in old oak book- 
cases, newly carved out of soft chestnut wood in the work- 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


xg6 

shops of Venice. It was an imposing apartment, with 
paneled dado, gilded Japanese paper, heavy cornice and 
ceiling, in carton pierre — such a room as makes the joy of 
architect, builder, and furniture maker. So far as dignity 
and social position can be bought for money, those attri- 
butes had been bought by Vansittart Crowther ; and yet 
this morning, standing before his mediaeval fireplace, with 
his hands in the pockets of his velvet lounge coat, he 
looked a craven. He advanced a step or two to meet his 
visitor, and offered his hand, which the colonel overlooked, 
fixing him at once with a gaze that went straight to the 
heart of his mystery. He felt that an accuser was before 
him — that he, Vansittart Crowther, was called to account. 

“ Mr. Crowther, I have come to ask what you mean by 
your insolent manner to my wife.” 

“ Insolent ! My dear Colonel Disney — I admire the lady 
in question more than any other woman within twenty 
miles. Surely it is not insolent to admire a pretty woman.” 

“ It is insolent to adopt the tone you have adopted to 
Mrs. Disney — first in your own house — on the solitary 
occasion when my wife and I were your guests — and next 
at the dinner-table last night. I took no notice of your 
manner on the first occasion — for though I considered your 
conduct offensive, I thought it might be your ordinary 
manner to a pretty woman, and I considered I did enough 
in forbidding my wife ever to re-enter your house. But 
last night the offense was repeated — was grosser — and 
more distinctly marked. What do you mean by talking to 
my wife of Lord Lostwithiel with a peculiar emphasis ? 
What do you mean b.y your affectation of a secret under- 
standing with my wife whenever you pronounce Lord Lost- 
withiel’s name ? ” 

“ I am not aware that there has been anything peculiar 
in my pronunciation of that name — or in my manner to 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


197 


Mrs. Disney,” said Mr. Crovvther, looking at his boots, but 
with a malignant smile lurking at the corners of his heavy 
lips. 

“ Oh, but you are aware of both facts. You meant to 
be insolent, and meant other people to notice your in- 
solence. It was your way of being even with me for defy- 
ing you to shut up the wood yonder, and cut off the 
people’s favorite walk to church. You dared not attack 
me, but you thought you could wreak your petty spite upon 
my wife — and you thought I should be too dull to ob- 
serve, or too much of a poltroon to resent your impertin- 
ence. That’s what you thought, Mr. Crowther : and I am 
here to undeceive you, and to tell you that you are a coward 
and a liar, and that if you don’t like those words you may 
send any friend you please to my friend, Captain Hulbert, 
to arrange a meeting in the nearest and most convenient 
place on the other side of the Channel.” 

Mr. Crowther turned very red, and then very pale. It 
was the first time he had been invited to venture his life in 
defense of his honor ; and for the moment it seemed to him 
that honor was a small thing, a shadowy possession exag- 
gerated into importance by the out-at-elbows 4 and penniless 
among mankind, who had nothing else to boast of. As if 
a man who always kept fifty thousand pounds at his bank- 
ers, and who had money invested all over the world, would 
go and risk his life upon the sands of Blankenburgh against 
a soldier whose retiring allowance was something less than 
three hundred a year, and who was perhaps a dead shot. 
The idea was preposterous. 

No, Mr. Crowther was not going to fight, and though he 
quailed before those steady eyes of Martin Disney’s, calm 
in their deep indignation, this explanation was not unwel- 
come to him. He had a dagger ready to plunge into his 
enemy’s heart, and he did not mean to hold his hand. 


198 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


“ I’m not a fighting man, Colonel Disney,” he said ; 
“ and if I were I should hardly care to fight for a grass 
widow who made herself common talk by her flirtation with 
a man of most notorious antecedents. We will say that it 
never was any more than a flirtation — in spite of Mrs. Dis- 
ney’s mysterious disappearance after the hunt ball, which 
happened exactly to correspond with Lord Lostwithiel’s 
sudden departure. The two events might have no connec- 
tion — more especially as Mrs. Disney came back ten days 
after, and Lord Lostwithiel hasn’t come back yet.” 

“ I can answer for my wife’s conduct, sir, under all cir- 
cumstances, and amid all surroundings. You are the 
first person who has ever dared to cast a slur upon her, and 
it shall not be my fault if you are not the last. I tell you 
again, to your face, that you are a coward and a liar — a 
coward because you are insolent to a young and lovely 
woman, and a liar because you insinuate evil against her 
which you are not able to substantiate.” 

“ Ask your wife where she was at the end of December, 
the year before last — the year you were in India. Ask her 
what she had been doing in London when she came back to 
Fowey on the last day of the year, and traveled in the same 
train with my lawyer, Mr. MacAllister, who was struck by 
her appearance, first because she was so pretty, and next 
because she looked the picture of misery — got into conver- 
sation with her, and found out who she was. If you think 
that is a lie, you can go to MacAllister, in the Old Jewry, 
and ask him to convince you that it is a fact.” 

“ There is no occasion. My wife has no secrets from me.” 

“ I am glad to hear it. Then there is really nothing to 
fight about except a good deal of vulgar abuse on your 
part, which I am willing to overlook. A man of your 
mature age, married to a beautiful girl, has some excuse for 
being jealous.” 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


199 


“ More excuse, perhaps, than a man of your age has for 
acting like a cad,” said the colonel, turning upon his heel, 
and leaving Mr. Crowther to his reflections. 

Those reflections were not altogether bitter. Mr. Crow- 
ther felt assured that he had sown the seeds of future 
misery. He did not believe in the colonel’s assertion that 
there were no secrets between him and his wife. He had 
cherished the knowledge of that mysterious journey from 
London on the last day of the year. He had warned his 
confidential friend and solicitor to mention the fact to no 
one else. He had pried and questioned, and by various 
crooked ways had found out that Isola had been absent 
from the Angler’s Rest for some days after the hunt ball, 
and he had told himself that she was a false wife, and that 
Martin Disney was a fool to trust her. 

As for being called by harsh names, he was too much a 
man of the world to attach any importance to an angry hus- 
band’s abuse. It made him not a sixpence the poorer ; and, 
as there had been no witness to the interview, it scarcely 
diminished his dignity. The thing rested between him and 
his enemy. 

“ He took down my gates, but I think I have given him 
something to think about that will spoil his rest for many 
a night, before he has thought it out,” mused Mr. Crowther. 

It was after the usual luncheon hour before Martin Dis- 
ney went back to the Angler’s Rest. He had been for 
a long walk by the river, trying to walk down the devil that 
raged within him, before he could trust himself to go home. 
His wife was alone in the drawing room, sitting by the fire 
with her baby in her lap ; but this time he did not pause on 
the threshold to contemplate that domestic picture. There 
was no tenderness in the eyes which looked at his wife — 
only a stern determination. Every feature in the familiar 


200 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


face looked strange and rigid, as in the face of an accuser 
and judge. 

“ Send the child away, Isola. I want some serious talk 
with you.” 

She stretched out a faltering hand to the bell, looking at 
him, pale and scared, but saying no word. She gave the 
baby to his nurse presently, in the same pallid dumbness, 
never taking her eyes from her husband’s face. 

“ Martin,” she gasped at last, frozen by his angry gaze, 
“ is there anything wrong ? ” 

“ Yes, there is something horribly wrong — something 
that means destruction. What were you doing in London 
the winter before last, while I was away ? What was the 
motive of your secret departure — your stealthy return ? 
What were you doing on the last day of the year ? Where 
had you been ? With whom ? ” 

She looked at him breathless with horror ; whether at 
the accusation implied in his words, or at his withering 
manner, it would have been difficult for the looker-on to 
decide. His manner was terrible enough to have scared 
any woman, as he stood before her, waiting for her answer. 

“ Where had you been — with whom ? ” he repeated, 
while her lips moved mutely, quivering as in abject fear. 
“ Great God, why can’t you answer ? Why do you look 
such a miserable, degraded creature — self-convicted — not 
able to speak one word in your own defense ? ” 

“ On the last day of the year ? ” she faltered, with those 
tremulous lips. 

“ On the last day of the year before last — the winter 
I spent in Burmah. What were you doing — where were 
you — where had you been ? Is it so difficult to remember ? ” 

“ No, no ; of course not,” she cried, with a half-hysteri- 
cal laugh. “ You frighten me out of my senses, Martin. 
I don’t know what you are aiming at. I was coming home 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


201 


from London on that day — of course — the 31st of Jan — 
no, December : coming home from Hans Place, where 
I had been spending a few days with Gwendoline.” 

“ You never told me of that visit to Gwendoline.” 

“ Oh, yes ; I’m sure I told you all about it in one of my 
letters. Perhaps you did not get that letter — I remember 
you never noticed it in yours. Martin, for God’s sake, 
don’t look at me like that ! ” 

“ I am looking at you to see if you are the woman I have 
loved and believed in, or if you are as false as hell,” he 
said, with his strong hand grasping her shoulder, her face 
turned to his, so that those frightened eyes of hers could 
not escape his scrutiny. 

“ Who has put this nonsense in your head ? ” 

“ Your neighbor — your good Mrs. Crowther’s husband — 
told me that his lawyer traveled with you from Paddington 
— on the 31st of December — the year before last. He got 
into conversation with you — you remember, perhaps ? ” 

“ No,” she cried, with a sudden piteous change in her 
face, “ I can’t remember.” 

“ But you came from London on that day. You remem- 
ber that ? ” 

“ Yes, yes. I came from Gwendoline’s house on that 
day. I told you so in my letter.” 

“ That letter which I never received — telling of that visit 
to which you made no allusion in any of your later letters. 
It was about that time, I think, that you fell off as a cor- 
respondent — left off telling me all the little details of your 
life — which in your earlier letters seemed to shorten the 
distance between us.” 

She was silent, listening to his reproaches with a sullen 
dumbness, as it seemed to him, while he stood there in his 
agony of doubt — in his despairing love. He turned from 
her with a heartbroken sigh, and slowly left the room, going 


202 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


away he scarce knew whither, only to put himself beyond 
the possibility of saying hard things to her, of letting 
burning, branding words flash out of the devouring fire in 
his heart. 

She stood for a few moments after he had gone, hesitating, 
breathless, and frightened, like a hunted animal at bay — 
then ran to the door, opened it softly, and listened. She 
could hear him pacing the room above. Again she stood 
still and hesitated, her lips tightly set, her hands clenched, 
her brow bent in painful thought. Then she snatched hat 
and jacket from a corner of the hall where such things were 
kept, and put them on hurriedly, with trembling hands, as 
if her fate depended upon the speed with which she got 
herself ready to go out, looking up at the great, dim, brazen 
face of the eight-day clock all the while. And then she let 
herself out at a half-glass door into the garden, and walked 
quickly to a side gate that opened into the lane — the gate 
at which the baker and the butcher stopped to gossip with 
the maids on fine mornings. 

There was a cold, bracing wind, and the sun was declin- 
ing in a sky barred with dense black clouds — an ominous 
sky, prophetic of storm or rain. Isola walked up the hill 
toward Tywardreath as if she were going on an errand of 
deadliest moment, skirted and passed the village, with no 
slackening of her pace, and so by hill and valley to Par, a 
lone and weary walk under ordinary circumstances for a 
delicate young woman, although accustomed to long country 
walks. But Isola went upon her lonely journey with a 
feverish determination which seemed to make her uncon- 
scious of distance. Her steps never faltered upon the hard, 
dusty road. The autumn wind that swept the dead leaves 
round her feet seemed to hold her up and carry her along 
without effort upon her part. Past copse and meadow, 
common land and stubble, she walked steadily onward, 


ALL ALONG THE El FEE. 


203 


looking neither to right nor left of her path, only straight 
forward to the signal lights that showed fiery red in the 
gray dusk at Par Junction. She watched the lights grow- 
ing larger and more distinct as she neared the end of her 
journey. She saw the fainter lights of the village scattered 
thinly beyond the station lamps, low down toward the sandy 
shore. She heard the distant rush of a train, and the dull 
sob of the sea creeping along the level shore, between the 
great cliffs that screened the bay. A clock struck six as 
she waited at the level crossing, in an agony of impatience, 
while truck after truck of china clay crept slowly by, in a 
procession that seemed endless ; and then, for the first time, 
she felt that the wind was cold, and that her thin little 
jacket did not protect her from that biting blast. Finally 
the line was clear, and she was able to cross and make her 
way to the village post-office. 

Her business at the post-office occupied about a quarter 
of an hour, and when she came out into the village street 
the sky had darkened, and there were heavy rain-drops 
making black spots upon the gray dust of the road ; but 
she hurried back by the way she had come, recrossed the 
line, and set out on the long journey home. The shower 
did not last long, but it was not the only one she encount- 
ered on her way back, and the poor little jacket was wet 
through when she re-entered by the servant’s gate, and by 
the half-glass door, creeping stealthily into her own house 
and running upstairs to her own room to get rid of her wet 
garments before anyone could surprise her with questions 
and sympathy. It was past eight o’clock, though she had 
walked so fast all the way as to feel neither cold nor damp. 
She took off her wet clothes and dressed herself for dinner 
in fear and trembling, imagining that her absence would 
have been wondered at, and her errand would be ques- 
tioned. It was an infinite relief when she went down to 


204 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


the drawing room to find only Allegra sitting at her easel, 
working at a sepia sketch by lamplight. 

“ Martin is very late,” she said, looking up as Isola 
entered, “ and he is generally a model of punctuality. I 
hope there is nothing wrong. Where have you been hiding 
yourself since lunch, Isa ? Have you been lying down ? ” 

“ Yes, part of the time ” — hesitatingly. “ It is very 
late.” 

Twenty minutes to nine. Dale has been in twice in the 
last quarter of an hour to say that the dinner is being 
spoilt. Hark ! There’s the door, and Martin’s step. 
Thank God, there is nothing wrong ! ” cried Allegra, getting 
up and going out to meet her brother. 

Colonel Disney’s countenance as he stood in the lamp- 
light was not so reassuring as the substantial fact of his 
return. It was something to know that he was not dead, 
or hurt in any desperate way — victim of any of those 
various accidents which the morbid mind of woman can 
imagine if husband or kinsman be unusually late for dinner; 
but that things were all right with him was open to ques- 
tion. He was ghastly pale, and had a troubled, half-dis- 
tracted expression which scared Allegra almost as much as 
his prolonged absence had done. 

“ I am sure there is something wrong,” she said, when 
they were seated at dinner, and the parlor-maid had with- 
drawn for a minute or two in pursuance of her duties, hav- 
ing started them fairly with the fish. 

“ Oh, no, there is nothing particularly amiss ; I have been 
worried a little, that’s all. I am very sorry to be so uncon- 
scionably late for dinner, and to sit down in this unkempt 
condition. But I loitered at the club looking at the London 
papers. I shall have to go to London to-morrow, Isola — 
on business — and I want you to go with me. Have you 
any objection ? ” 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


205 


She started at the word London, and looked at him 
curiously — surprised, yet resolute — as if she were not alto- 
gether 'unprepared for some startling proposition on his part. 

“ Of course not. I would rather go with you if you really 
have occasion to go.” 

“I really have ; it is very important. You won’t mind 
our deserting you for two or three days, will you, Allegra ? ” 
asked Disney, turning to his sister. “ Mrs. Baynham will 
be at your service as chaperon if you want to go out any- 
where while we are away. It is an office in which she 
delights.” 

“ I won’t trouble her. I shall stay at home and paint all 
the time. I have a good deal of work to do to my pictures 
before they will be ready for the winter exhibition, and the 
time for sending in is drawing dreadfully near. You need 
have no anxiety as to my gadding about, Martin. You will 
find me shut up in my painting room, come home when you 
will.” 

Later, when she and her brother were alone in the draw- 
ing room, she went up to him softly and put her arms 
around his neck. 

“ Martin, dearest, I know you have some great trouble. 
Why don’t you tell me ? Is it anything very bad ? Does 
it mean loss of fortune ; poverty to be faced ; this pretty 
home to be given up, perhaps ? ” 

“ No, no, no, my dear. The home is safe enough ; the 
house will stand firm as long as you and I live. I am not 
a shilling poorer than I was yesterday. There is nothing 
the matter — nothing worth speaking about ; blue devils, 
vapors if you like. That’s all.” 

“You are ill, Martin. You have found out that there is 
something wrong with you — heart, lungs, something — and 
you are going to London to consult a physician. Oh, my 
dear, dear brother,” she cried, with a look of agony, her 


206 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


arms still clasped about his neck, “ don’t keep me in the 
dark ; let me know the worst.” 

“ There is no worst, Allegra ; don’t I tell you there is 
nothing. I am out of sorts, that’s all. I am going to town 
to see my lawyer.” 


CHAPTER XV. 

“ MY LIFE CONTINUES YOURS, AND YOUR LIFE MINE.” 

They started by the eleven o’clock train from Fowey 
next morning, husband and wife, in a strangely silent com- 
panionship — Isola very pale and still as she sat in a corner 
of the railway carriage, with her back to the rivers and the 
sea. Naturally, in a place of that kind, they could not get 
away without being seen by some of their neighbors. Cap- 
tain Pentreath was going to Bodmin, and insisted upon 
throwing away a half-finished cigar in order to enjoy the 
privilege of Colonel and Mrs. Disney’s society, being one 
of those unmeditative animals who hate solitude. He 
talked all the way to Par, lit a fresh cigar during the wait 
at the junction, and re-appeared just as the colonel and his 
wife were taking their seats in the up train. 

“ Have you room for me in there ? ” he asked, sacrificing 
more than half of his second cigar. “ I’ve got the Mercury 
— Jepps is in for Stokumpton — a great triumph for our 
side.” 

He spread out the paper, and made believe to begin to 
read with a great show of application, as if he meant to 
devour every syllable of Jepps’ long exposition of the polit- 
ical situation ; but after two minutes he dropped the Mer- 
cury on his knees and began to talk. There were people in 
Fowey who doubted whether Captain Pentreath could read. 
He had been able once, of course, or he could hardly have 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


207 


squeezed himself into the army ; but there was an idea 
that he had forgotten the accomplishment, except in its 
most elementary form upon sign-boards and in the headings 
of newspaper articles, printed large. It was supposed that 
the intensity of effort by which he had taken in the cram- 
ming that enabled him to pass the ordeal of the examiners 
had left his brain a blank. 

“You’re not going further than Plymouth. I "Suppose ? ” 
he asked. 

“ We are going to London.” 

“ Are you really, now ? A bad time of year for London 
— fogs, and thaws, and all kinds of beastly weather.” 

And then he asked a string of questions — futile, trivial, 
vexing as summer flies buzzing round the head of an after- 
noon sleeper ; and then came the welcome cry of Bodmin 
Road, and he reluctantly left them. 

The rest of the journey was passed almost in silence. 
They had the compartment to themselves for the greater 
part of the time, and they sat in opposite corners pretend- 
ing to read — Isola apparently absorbed in a book that she 
had taken up at random just before she started, when the 
carriage was at the door, and Allegra was calling to her to 
make haste. 

It was Carlyle’s “ Hero Worship.” The big words, the 
magnificent sentences passed before her eyes like a proces- 
sison of phantoms. She had not the faintest idea what she 
was reading ; but she followed the lines and turned the 
leaf at the bottom of the page mechanically. 

Martin Disney applied himself to the newspapers which 
he had accumulated along the line — some at Par, some at 
Plymouth, some at Exeter, till the compartment was lit- 
tered all over with them. He turned and tossed them over 
one after the other. Never had they seemed so empty — 
the leaders such mere beating the air ; the hard facts so 


208 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


few and insignificant. He glanced at Isola as she sat in 
her corner motionless and composed. He watched the 
slender white hands turning the leaves of her book at regu- 
lar intervals. 

“ Is your book interesting ? ” he asked at last, exasper- 
ated by her calmness. 

He had been attentive and polite to her, offering her the 
papers, ordering tea for her at Exeter, doing all that a 
courteous husband ought to do ; but he had made no 
attempt at conversation — nor had she. This question 
about the book was wrung from him by the intensity of his 
irritation. 

“ It is a book you gave me years ago at Dinan,” she 
answered, looking at him piteously. “ 1 Hero Worship.' 
Don’t you remember ? I had never read anything of 
Carlyle’s before then. You taught me to like him.” 

“ Did I ? Yes, I remember — a little Tauchnitz volume, 
bound in morocco — contraband in England. A cheat — 
like many things in this life.” 

He turned his face resolutely to the window, as if to end 
the conversation, and he did not speak again till they were 
moving slowly into the great station, in the azure brightness 
of the electric light. 

“ I have telegraphed for rooms at Whitley’s,” he said, 
naming a small private hotel near Cavendish Square where 
they had stayed for a few days before he started for the 
East. “ Do you think it would be too late for us to call at 
Hans Place before we go to our hotel ? ” 

She started at the question. He saw her cheeks crimson 
in the lamplight. 

“ I don’t think the lateness of hour will matter,” she 
said, “ unless Gwendoline is dining out. She dines out 
very often.” 

“ I hope to-night may be an exception.” 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


209 


“ Do you want very much to see her ? ” asked Isola. 

“Very much.” 

“ You are going to question her about me, I suppose ?” 

“ Yes, Isola, that is what I am going to do.” 

“ It is treating me rather like a criminal ; or k at any rate, 
like a person whose word cannot be believed.” 

“ I can’t help myself, Isola. The agony of doubt that I 
have gone through can only be set at rest in one way. It 
is so strange a thing, so impossible as it seems to me, that 
you should have visited your sister while I was away, 
although no letter I received from you contained the slight- 
est allusion to that visit — an important event in such a 
monotonous life as yours — and although no word you have 
ever spoken since my return has touched upon it ; till all 
at once, at a moment’s notice, when I tell you of your jour- 
ney from London, and the slander to which it gave occa- 
sion — all at once you spring this visit upon me, as if I ought 
to have known all about it.” 

“ You can ask Gwendoline as many questions as you 
like,” answered Isola, with an offended air, “ and you will 
see if she denies that I went to see her in the December 
you were away.” 

Colonel Disney handed his wife into a station brougham. 
The two portmanteaus were put upon the roof, and the 
order was given — 99 Hans Place — for, albeit Mr. Hazel- 
rigg’s splendid mansion was described on his cards and his 
writing paper as The Towers, it is always as well to have a 
number for the commonalty to know us by. 

No word was spoken in the long drive by Park Lane and 
Knightsbridge, and the seemingly interminable Sloane 
Street ; no word when the neat little brougham drew up in 
front of a lofty flight of steps leading up to a Heidelburg 
doorway, set in the midst of a florid red brick house, some- 
what narrow in proportion to its height, and with over much 


210 


ALL ALONG THE RLVER. 


ornament in the way of terra cotta paneling, bay and oriel, 
balcony and niche. 

A footman in dark green livery and rice powder opened 
the door. Mrs. Hazel rigg was at home. He led the way 
to one of those dismal rooms which are to be found in 
most fine houses — a room rarely used by the family — a kind 
of pound for casual visitors. Sometimes the pound is as 
cold and cheerless as a vestry in a new Anglican church ; 
sometimes it affects a learned air, lines its walls with books 
that no one ever reads, and calls itself a library. Whatever 
form or phase it mg,y take,, it never fails to chill the visitor. 

There was naturally no fire in this apartment. Isola sank 
shivering into a slippery leather chair, near the Early Eng- 
lish fender ^ her husband walked up and down the narrow 
floor space. This lasted for nearly ten minutes, when 
Gwendoline came bursting in, a vision of splendor, in a 
gray plush tea-gown, frothed with much foam of creamy 
lace and pale pink ribbon, making a cascade of fluffiness 
from chin to slippered toes. 

“ What a most astonishing th ng,” she cried, after kissing 
Isola, and holding out both her plump, white hands to the 
colonel. “ Have you dear, good people, dropped from the 
clouds ? I thought you were nearly three hundred miles 
away when the man came to say you were waiting to see 
me. It is a miracle we are dining at home to-night. We are 
so seldom at home. Of course you will stay and dine with 
us. Come up to my room and take off your hat, Isa. No, 
you needn’t worry about dress,” anticipating Disney’s 
refusal ; “ we are quite alone. I am going to dine in my 
tea-gown, and Daniel is only just home from the city.” 

“You are very kind ; no, my dear Mrs. Hazelrigg, we 
won't dine with you to-night,” answered Disney. “We 
have only just come up to town, and we drove across the 
park to see you before going to our hotel. Our portman- 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 2 it 

teaus are waiting at the door. We are in town for so short 
a time that I wanted to see you at once — particularly as I 
have — a rather foolish question to ask you.” 

His voice grew husky, though he tried his uttermost to 
maintain a lightness of tone. 

“ Ask away,” said Gwendoline, straightening herself in her 
glistening gray gown, a splendid example of modern ele- 
gance in dress and demeanor, and altogether a more bril- 
liant and imposing beauty than the pale, fragile figure sitting 
in a drooping attitude beside the fireless hearth. “ Ask 
away,” repeated Gwendoline, gayly, glancing at her sister’s 
mournful face as she spoke. “ If I can answer you I will — 
but please to consider that I have a wretched memory.” 

“ You are not likely to forget the fact I want to ascertain. 
My wife and I have had an argument about dates — we are 
at variance about the date of her last visit to you— while I 
was away — and I should like to settle our little dispute, 
though it did not go so far as a wager. When was she with 
you ? On what date did she leave you ? ” 

All hesitation and huskiness were gone from manner and 
voice. He stood like a pillar, with his face turned toward 
his sister-in-law, his eyes resolute and inquiring. 

“ Oh, don’t ask me about dates,” cried Gwendoline, “ I 
never know dates. I buy Lett’s in every form, year after 
year ; but I never can keep up my diary. Nothing but a 
self-acting diary would be of any use to me. It was in 
December she came to me — and in December she left — 
after a short visit. Come, Isa. You must remember the 
dates of your arrival and departure better than I. You 
don’t live in the London whirl. You don’t have your 
brains addled by hearing about Buenos Ayres, Reading and 
Philadelphias, Berthas, Brighton A’s, and things.” 

Martin Disney looked at her searchingly. Her manner 
was perfectly easy and natural, of a childlike transparency. 


$ 1 $ 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


Her large, bright blue eyes looked at him — fearless and 
candid as the eyes of a child. 

“ You ought to remember that it was on the last day of 
the year 1 left this house,” said Isola, in her low depressed 
voice, as of one weary unto death. “You said enough 
about it at the time.” 

“ Did I ? Oh, I am such a feather-head, unc vraie t£te de 
linotte , as they used to call me at Dinan. So it was, New 
Year’s Eve — and I was vexed with you for not staying to 
see the New Year in. That was it. I remember every- 
thing about it now.” 

“ Thank you, Mrs. Hazelrigg,” said Martin Disney, and 
then going over to his wife, he said gravely, “ Forgive me, 
Isola, I was wrong.” 

He held out his hands to her with a pleading look, and 
she rose slowly from her chair, and let her head fall upon 
his breast as he puts his arms round her, soothing and 
caressing her. 

“My poor girl, I was wrong — wrong — wrong — a sinner 
against your truth and purity,” he murmured low in her 
ear ; and then he added laughingly, to Gwendoline, “Were 
we not fools to dispute about such a trifle ? ” 

“ All married people are fools on occasion,” answered 
Mrs. Hazelrigg. “ I have often quarreled desperately with 
Daniel about a mere nothing — not because he was wrong, 
but because I wanted to quarrel. That kind of thing clears 
the air like a thunderstorm. One feels so dutiful and 
affectionate afterward. Dan gave me this sapphire ring 
after one of our biggest rows,” she added, holding up a 
sparkling finger. 

Daniel Hazelrigg came into the room while she was talk- 
ing of him, a large man with a bald head and sandy beard, 
a genial-looking man, pleased with a world in which he had 
been permitted always to foresee the rise and fall of stocks. 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


213 


The Hazelriggs were the very type of a comfortable couple, 
so steeped in prosperity and the good things of this world 
as to be hardly aware of any keener air outside the gar- 
denia-scented atmosphere of their own house ; hardly aware 
of men who dined badly, or women who made their own 
gowns ; much less of men who never dined at all, or women 
who flung themselves despairing from the parapets of the 
London bridges. 

Mr. Hazelrigg came into the room beaming, looked at his 
wife and smiled as he held out his hand to Colonel Disney, 
looked at his sister-in-law and smiled again,, and held out 
his hand to her, the smile broadening a little as if with 
really affectionate interest. 

“ I’m very glad to see you, my dear Mrs. Disney ; but I 
can’t compliment you upon looking as well as you did when 
we last met.” 

“ She is tired after her long journey,” said Gwendoline 
quickly. “ That’s all there is amiss.” 

“ The sooner we get to our hotel the better for both of 
us,” said Disney. “ We are dusty and weather-beaten, and 
altogether bad company. Good-night, Mrs. Hazelrigg.” 

“ But surely you’ll stop and dine ; it’s close upon eight,” 
remonstrated Hazelrigg, who was the essence of hospitality. 
“ You can send on your luggage, and go to your hotel 
later.” 

“ You are very good, but we are not fit for dining out. 
Isola looks half dead with fatigue,” answered Disney. 
“ Once more, good night.” 

He shook hands with husband and wife and hurried Isola 
to the door. 

“ Be sure you come to me the first thing to-morrow,” said 
Gwendoline to her sister. “ I shall stay in till you come, 
and I can drive you anywhere you want to go for your shop- 
ping — Stores, Lewis’, and Allenby’s — anywhere. I want to 


214 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


show you my drawing room. I have changed everything in 
it. You’ll hardly know it again.” 

She and her husband followed the departing guests to the 
hall, saw them get into the little brougham, and drive off 
into the night ; and then Gwendoline put her arm through 
her husband’s with a soft, clinging affectionateness, as of a 
Persian cat that knew when it was well housed and taken 
good care of. 

“ Poor Isa ! how awfully ill she looks,” sighed Gwendo- 
line. 

“ Ghastly. Are all women alike, I wonder, Gwen ? ” 

“ I think you ought to know what kind of woman I am 
by this time,” retorted his wife, tossing up her head. 

Martin Disney and his wife were alone in their sitting 
room at the hotel, somewhat bare and unhomelike, as all 
hotel rooms must always be, despite the march of civiliza- 
tion which has introduced certain improvements. He had 
made a pretense of dining in the coffee room below, and 
she had taken some tea and toast beside the fire ; and now, 
at ten o’clock, they were sitting on each side of the hearth, 
face to face, pale and thoughtful, and strangely silent. 

“ Isola, have you forgiven me ? ” he asked at last. 

“ With all my heart. O Martin ! I could never be angry 
with you — never. You have been so good to me. How 
could I be angry ? ” 

“ But you have the right to be angry. I ought not to 
have doubted. I ought to have believed your word against 
all the world ; but that man raised a doubting devil in me. 
I was mad with fears and suspicions, wild and unreasonable, 
as I suppose jealousy generally is. I had never been 
jealous before. Great God ! what a fearful passion it is 
when a man gives himself up to it. I frightened you by 
my vehemence, and then your scared looks frightened me. 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


215 


I mistook fear for guilt. Isola, my beloved, let me hear 
the truth from your own lips, the assurance, the certainty,” 
he cried with impassioned fervor, getting up and going over 
to her, looking down into the pale, upturned face with those 
dark, earnest eyes, which always seemed to search the 
mysteries of her heart. “ Let there be no shadow of uncer- 
tainty or distrust between us. I have heard from your sis- 
ter that you were with her when you said you were. That 
is much. It settles for that vile cad’s insinuated slander ; 
but it is not enough. Let the assurance come to me from 
your lips — from yours alone. Tell me, by the God who 
will judge us both some day, are you my own true 
wife ? ” 

“ I am, Martin — I am your own true wife,” she answered, 
with an earnestness that thrilled him. “ I have not a 
thought that is not of you. I love you with all my heart 
and mind. Is not that enough ? ” 

“ Yes, yes. And you have never wronged me ? You 
have be'en true and pure always ? I call upon God to hear 
your words, Isola. Is that true ? ” 

“ Yes, yes ; it is true.” 

“ God bless you, darling ! I will never speak of doubt 
again. You are my own sweet wife, and shall be honored 
and trusted to the end of my days. Thank God, the cloud 
is past, and we can be happy again ! ” 

She rose from her low seat by the fire, and put her arms 
round his neck, and hid her face upon his breast, sobbing 
hysterically. 

“ My own dear girl ! I have been cruel to you — brutal 
and unkind ; but you would forgive me if you knew what I 
have suffered since noon yesterday ; and, indeed, my suffer- 
ing began before then. That man’s harping on Lost- 
withiel’s name in all his talk with you — his manner of 
meaning more than he said — and your embarrassment, 


21 6 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


awakened suspicions that had to be set at rest somehow. 
Remember the disadvantages under which I labor — the dif- 
ference in our ages ; my unattractiveness as compared with 
younger men. These things predisposed me to doubt your 
love. I have not had a moment’s peace since the night of 
that odious dinner party. Yes; I have felt a new sensa- 
tion. I know what jealousy means. But it is past. Praise 
be to God, it is past. I have come out of the cloud again. 
Oh, my love, had it been otherwise ! Had we been doomed 
to part ! ” 

“ What would you have done, Martin ? ” she asked in a 
low voice, with her face still hidden against his breast, his 
arms still round her. 

“What would I have done, love? Nothing to bring 
shame on you. Nothing to add to your dishonor or 
sharpen the agony of remorse. I should have taken my 
son — my son could not be left under the shadow of a 
mother’s shame. He and I would have vanished out of 
your life. You would have heard no more of us. The 
world would have known nothing. You would have been 
cared for and protected from further evil — protected from 
your own frailty. So far, I would have done my duty as 
your husband to the last day of my life ; but you and I 
would never have looked upon each other again. 

Colonel Disney and his wife stayed in London two days ; 
perhaps to give color to their sudden and in somewise 
unexplained journey ; but Isola refused all her sister’s 
invitations, to lunch, to drive, to dine, to go to an afternoon 
concert at the Albert Hall, or to see the last Shaksperean 
revival at the Lyceum. She pleaded various excuses ; and 
Gwendoline had to be satisfied with one visit, at afternoon 
tea-time, when husband and wife appeared together, on the 
eve of their return to Cornwall. 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER . 


217 


“ It was too bad of you not to come to me yesterday 
morning, as you promised,” Gwendoline said to her sister. 
“ I stayed indoors till after luncheon on your account ; 
and the days are so short at this time of year. I couldn’t 
do any shopping.” 

Mrs. Hazelrigg was one of those young women for 
whom life is flavorless when they have nothing to buy. 
She was so well supplied with everything that women 
desire, or care for, that she had to invent wants for herself. 
She had to watch the advertisements in order to tempt her- 
self with some new wish ; were it only for a patent toast- 
rack, or a new design in ivory paper-knives. The 
stationers helped to keep life in her by their new depar- 
tures in writing-paper. Papyrus, mandarin, telegraphic, 
good form, casual, mauve, orange, scarlet, verdigris 
green. So long as the thing was new it made an excuse 
for shopping. 

“ You never came to look at my drawing room by day- 
light,” she went on complainingly. “ You can’t possibly 
judge the tints by lamp-light. Every chair is of a different 
shade. I think you have treated me shamefully. I have 
sent you more telegrams than I can count. And I had such 
lots to talk about. Have you heard from Dinan lately?” 

“ Not since August, when mother wrote in answer to our 
invitation for her and her father to spend a month with us. 
I felt it was hopeless when I wrote to her.” 

“ Utterly hopeless ! Nothing would tempt her to cross 
the sea. She writes about it as if it were the Atlantic. 
And Lucy Folkstone tells me she is getting stouter.” 

“ You mean mother ? ” 

“Yes, naturally. There’s no fear of Lucy ever being 
anything but bones. Mother is stouter and more seden- 
tary than ever, Lucy says. It’s really dreadful. One 
doesn’t know where it will end,” added Gwendoline, look- 


21 8 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER . 


ing down at her own portly figure, as if foreseeing hered- 
itary evil. 

“ I shall have to take Isa and the boy to Dinan next 
summer,” said Disney. “It is no use asking the father 
and mother to cross the Channel ; though I think they 
would both like to see their grandson.” 

“Mother raved about him in her last letter to me,” 
replied Gwendoline. “ She was quite overcome by the 
photograph you sent her, only she has got into such a 
groove — her knitting, her novel, her little walk on the 
terrace, her long consultations with Manette about the 
smallest domestic details — whether the mattresses shall be 
unpicked to-day or to-morrow, or whether the lessive shall 
be a week earlier or a week later. It is dreadful to think 
of such a life,” added Gwendoline, as if her own existence 
were one of loftiest aims. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

“sorrow that’s deeper than we dream, 

PERCHANCE.” 

Life flowed on its monotonous course, always more or 
less like the Fowey River gliding down from Lostwithiel 
to the sea ; and there seemed nothing in this world that could 
again disturb Martin Disney’s domestic peace. Vansittart 
Crowther made no further attempt to avenge himself for 
the night attack upon his gates ; nor did he demand any 
apology for the vulgar abuse which he had endured in the 
sanctuary of his own library. This he suffered meekly, and 
even further outrage, in the shape of the following letter 
from Colonel Disney : 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


219 


“ Sir: As you have been pleased to take a certain old- 
womanish interest in my domestic affairs, I think it may be 
as well to satisfy your curiosity so far as to inform you that 
when your solicitor traveled in the same train with my 
wife, she was returning from a visit to her married sister’s 
house, a visit which had my sanction and approval. I can 
only regret that her husband’s modest means constrained 
her to travel alone, and subjected her to the impertinent 
attentions of one cad and to the slanderous aspersions of 
another. 

“ I have the honor to be, 

“ Yours, etc., 

“ Martin Disney.” 

Mr. Crowther treated this letter with the silent contempt 
which he told himself it merited. What could he say to a 
man so possessed by uxorious hallucinations, so steeped in 
the poppy and mandragora of a blind affection, that reason 
had lost all power over his mind. 

“ I spoke plain enough — as plain as I dared,” said Mr. 
Crowther. “ He may ride the high horse and bluster as 
much as he likes. I don’t think he’ll ever feel quite happy 
again.” 

Yet in spite of hints and insinuations from the enemy at 
his gates, Martin Disney was happy — utterly happy in the 
love of his young wife, and in the growing graces of his 
infant son. He no longer doubted Isola’s affection. Her 
tender regard for him showed itself in every act of her life ; 
in every look of the watchful face that was always on the 
alert to divine his pleasure, to forestall his wishes. Mrs. 
Baynham went about everywhere expatiating on the domes- 
tic happiness of the Disney family, to whom she was more 
than ever devoted, now that she felt herself in a manner 
related to them, having been elevated to the position of 


220 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


godmother to the first born — a very different thing to being 
godmother to some sixth or seventh link in the family chain, 
when all thought of selection has been abandoned, and the 
only thing mooted by the parents has been, “ Whom can 
we ask this time ? ” 

Captain Hulbert took his yacht to other waters in Novem- 
ber, only to come sailing back again in December, when 
he finally laid up the Vendetta in winter quarters, and took 
up his abode at The Mount, where he availed himself of his 
brother’s stud, which had been fined down to two old 
hunters and a pair of carriage horses of mediocre quality. 
And so the shortening days drew on toward Christmas ; 
baby’s first Christmas, as that small person’s adorers re- 
marked — as if it were a wonderful thing for any young 
Christian to make a beginning of life — and all was happi- 
ness at the Angler’s Rest. All was happiness without a 
cloud till one morning, Allegra and her brother being 
alone in the library — where she sometimes painted at her 
little table easel, while he read — she put down 4ier palette 
and went over to him, laying her hand upon his shoulder 
as he sat in his accustomed place in the old-fashioned bow 
window. 

“ Martin, I want to speak to you about Isola,” she said, 
rather tremulously. 

“ What about her ? Why, she was here this minute,” 
he exclaimed. “ Is there anything amiss ? ” 

“ I do not think she is so strong as she ought to be. 
You may not notice, perhaps. A woman is quicker to see 
these things than a man — and she and I used to walk and 
row together — I am able to see the difference in her since 
last year. She seems to me to have been going back in her 
health for the last month or two, since her wonderful re- 
covery from her illness. Don’t be anxious, Martin ! ” she 
said, answering his agonized look. “ I feel sure there is 


ALL ALONG THE EL FEE. 


221 


nothing that a little care cannot cure ; but I want to put 
you on your guard. I asked her to let me send for Mr. 
Baynham, and she refused.” 

“ Why, he sees her two or three times a week — he is in 
and out like one of ourselves.” 

“ But he doesn’t see her professionally. He comes in 
hurriedly late in the eveniug — or between the lights — to 
fetch his wife. He is tired, and we all talk to him, and Isa 
is bright and lively. He is not likely to notice the change 
in her in that casual way.” 

“ Is there a change ? ” 

“ Yes, I am sure there is. Although I see her every day 
I am conscious of the change.” 

“ Baynham shall talk to her this afternoon.” 

“ That’s right, Martin — and if I were you I’d have the 
doctor from Plymouth again.” 

Life had been so full of bliss lately, and yet he had not 
been afraid. Yes, it was the old story — “ Metuit secundis.” 
That was what the wise man did. Fools do otherwise — 
hug themselves in their short-lived gladness, and say in 
their hearts “ There is no death.” 

Mr. Baynham came in the afternoon, in answer to a little 
note from Martin Disney, and he and Isola were closeted 
together in the library for some time, with baby’s nurse in 
attendance to assist her mistress in preparing for the or- 
deal by stethoscope. Happily that little instrument, which 
thrills us all with the aching pain of fear when we see it in 
the doctor’s hand, told no evil tidings of Isola’s lungs or 
heart. There was nothing organically wrong — but the 
patient was in a very weak state. 

“ You really are uncommonly low,” said Mr. Baynham, 
looking at her intently as she stood before him in the win- 
try sunlight. “ I don’t know what you’ve been doing to 


222 


ALL ALONG THE EL FEE. 


yourself to bring yourself down so much since last summer — 
after all the trouble I took to build you up, too. I’m 
afraid you’ve been worrying yourself about the youngster 
— a regular young Hercules. I don’t know whether 
he’d be up to strangling a pair of prize pythons ; but I’m 
sure he could strangle you. I shall send you a tonic ; and 
you’ll have to take a good deal more care of yourself than 
you seem to have been taking lately.” 

And then he laid down severe rules as to diet, until it 
seemed to Isola that he wished her to be eating and drink- 
ing all day — new laid eggs, cream, old port, beef tea — all 
the things which she had loathed in the dreary days of her 
long illness in May and June. 

Mr. Baynham had a serious talk with the colonel after he 
left Isola, and it was agreed between them that she should 
be taken to Plymouth next day to see the great authority. 

“ You are taking a great deal too much trouble about me, 
Martin,” she said. “ There is nothing wrong. I am only 
a little weak and tired sometimes.” 

Her husband looked at her heart-brokenly. Weak and 
tired. Yes ; there were all the signs of failing life in those 
languid movements of the long, slender limbs, in the trans- 
parent pallor of the ethereal countenance. Decay was lovely 
in this fair young form ; but he felt that it was decay. 
There must be something done to stop Misfortune’s has- 
tening feet. 

He questioned his wife, he questioned his own memory, 
as to when the change had begun ; and, on looking back 
thus thoughtfully, it seemed to him that her spirits and her 
strength had flagged from the time of Captain Hulbert’s 
arrival at Fowey. She had seemed tolerably cheerful until 
then, interested in life, ready to participate in any amuse- 
ment or occupation of Allegra’s ; but, from the beginning 
of their yatching excursions, there had been a change. She 


ALL ALONG THE RLVER. 


223 


had shrunk from any share in their plans or expeditions. 
She had gone on board the yacht — on the two or three 
occasions when she had been persuaded to go — with obvious 
reluctance, and she had been silent and joyless all the time 
she was there. Within the last fortnight, w r hen Captain 
Hulbert had pressed her to go to luncheon or afternoon 
tea at The Mount, she had persistently refused. She had 
begged her husband to take Allegra, and to excuse her. 

“ The walk up the hill would tire me,” she said. 

“ My love, why should we walk ? I will drive you there, 
of course.” 

“ I really had rather not go. I can’t bear leaving baby 
so long ; and there is no necessity for me to be with you. 
Allegra is the person who is wanted. You must understand 
that, Martin. You can see how much Captain Hulbert 
admires her.” 

“ And I am to go and do gooseberry while you do baby- 
worship at home. Rather hard upon me.” 

This kind of thing had occurred three or four times 
since the sailor’s establishment at The Mount, and Colonel 
Disney had attached no significance to the matter ; but 
now that he had begun to torture himself by unending 
speculations upon the cause of her declining health, he 
could but think that Captain Hulbert’s society had been 
distasteful to her. It might be that Mr. Crowther’s insult- 
ing allusions to Lord Lostwithiel had made any association 
with that name painful ; and yet this would seem an over- 
strained sensitiveness, since her own innocence of evil 
should have made her indifferent to a vulgarian’s covert 


sneers. 


224 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


CHAPTER XVII. 

“ NOR WERE IT FIT THAT AUGHT OF THEE GREW 
OLD.” 

Mr. Baynham accompanied his patient and her husband 
to Plymouth, where the family adviser of Trelasco had 
a long and serious talk with the leading medical light of 
the great seaport. The result of which consultation — after 
the tossing to and fro of such words as anaemia, atrophy, 
family history, hysteria, between the two doctors as lightly 
as if diseases were shuttlecocks — was briefly communicated 
to Colonel Disney in a sentence that struck terror to his 
heart, carefully as it was couched. It amounted in plain 
words to this : We think your wife’s condition serious 
enough to cause alarm, although there are at present no 
indications of organic disease. Should her state of bodily 
weakness and mental depression continue, we apprehend 
atrophy, or perhaps chronic hysteria. Under these cir- 
cumstances, we strongly recommend you to give her 
a change of scene, and a milder winter climate than that of 
the west of England. Were she living in Scotland or 
Yorkshire, we might send her to Fowey ; but as it is we 
should advise either a sea voyage, or a residence for the 
rest of the winter at Pau, Biarritz, or on the Riviera. 

Modern medicine has a high-handed way of sending 
patients to the uttermost ends of the earth ; and, although 
Martin Disney thought with a regretful pang of the house 
and stables that he had built and beautified for himself, the 
garden where every shrub was dear, yet he felt grateful to 
the specialist for not ordering him to take his wife to the 
banks of the Amazon or to some remote valley in Cash- 
mere. Pau is not far — the Riviera is the beaten track of 
civilized Europe, the highway road to Naples and the East. 


ALL ALONG THE RLVER. 


225 


He thought of the happy honeymoon, when he and his 
bright young wife had traveled along that garden of 
oranges and lemons, between the hills and the sea, and how 
there had been no shadow on their lives except the shadow 
of impending separation, about which they had talked 
hopefully, trying to believe that a year or two would not 
seem very long, trying to project their thoughts into that 
happy future when there should be no more parting. 

This — this dreary present — was that future which they 
had pictured as a period of unalloyed bliss. What had 
the future brought to that hopeful husband, going forth at 
the call of duty, to return with fondest expectations when 
his work was done ? What but a year and a half of 
wedded life overshadowed by disappointment, darkened by 
vague doubts ? And now came the awful fear of a longer 
parting than had lain at the end of his last Italian 
journey. 

The patient herself was told nothing, except that change 
to a warmer climate would be good for her, and that her 
husband had promised to take her to the South soon 
after Christmas. 

“ You will like to go, won’t you, Isola ? ” he asked her 
tenderly, as they drove back to the station alone, leaving 
Mr. Baynham to follow his own devices in the town. “You 
will enjoy seeing the places we saw together when our 
marriage was still a new thing ? ” 

“ I shall like to go anywhere with you, Martin,” she 
answered. “ But is it really necessary to go away ? I 
know you love Trelasco.” 

“ Oh, I have the Cornishman’s passion for his native soil ; 
but I am not so rooted to it as to pine in exile. I shall be 
happy enough in the South, with my dear young wife ; 
especially if I see the roses come back to your cheeks in 
that land of roses.” 


226 


ALL ALONG THE RLVER. 


“ But it would cost you such a lot of money to take us 
all away, Martin ; and you could not leave Allegra or the 
baby. Doctors have such expensive ideas.” 

“ Allegra, and the boy ! Must we take them, do you 
think, love ? ” 

“ We could not leave him,” said Isola, horrified at the 
bare suggestion ; “ and it would be very hard to leave 
Allegra. She bore all the burden of my last illness. She 
has been so good and unselfish. And she will so revel in 
the South. She has never traveled : she, for whom nature 
means so much more than it can for you or me.” 

“ Well, we will take Allegra, and the boy, whose railway 
ticket will cost nothing, and his nurse. There is a shot in 
the locker still, Isa, in spite of last year’s building opera- 
tions, which cost a good deal more than I expected. We 
will all migrate together. Consider that settled. The 
only question that remains is the direction in which we 
shall go. Shall we make for the Pyrenees or the Maritime 
Alps ? Shall we go to Pan, and Biarritz, or to the Riviera, 
Hyeres, Cannes, Nice ?” 

Isola was in favor of Pau ; but, after much consultation of 
books recording other people’s experiences, it was finally 
decided that, of all places in the world, San Remo was the 
best winter home for Isola Disney. 

“You can take her up to the Engadine in June,” said 
Mr. Baynham, who had a superficial familiarity with the 
Continent from hearing his patients talk about their travels ; 
he himself never having left Cornwall, except for a plunge 
into the metropolitan vortex during the cattle show week. 
“ Or you may spend your summer in Auvergne — unless you 
want to come home as soon as the cold weather is over.” 

“ I shall do whatever may be best for her — home or 
otherwise,” answered Disney. “You may be sure of that.” 

The doctor went back to his wife, with whom he always 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


227 


discussed everything, except purely professional matters — 
there were even occasions when he could not refrain from 
enlarging upon the interesting features of some very 
pretty case — and was enthusiastic in his praise of Martin 
Disney. 

“ I never saw such devotion,” he said. “ Any other man 
would think it hard lines to have to strike his tent at a 
day’s notice, and go off to winter at a strange place, among 
invalids and old women ; but Disney says never a word of 
his own inclinations or his own inconvenience. He posi- 
tively adores that young woman. I only hope she’s worth 
it.” 

“ She’s very fond of him, Tom,” replied Mrs. Baynham 
decisively. “ There was a time when I was rather doubtful 
about that. She seemed listless and indifferent. But since 
the baby came she has been growing fonder and fonder of 
her husband. I flatter myself I am a pretty good judge of 
countenances, and I can read hers. I’ve seen her face 
light up when the colonel came into the room. I’ve seen 
her go over to him shyly, as if she were still in her honey- 
moon. She’s a very sweet creature. I took to her from 
the first ; and I shall be dreadfully upset if she goes into 
a decline.” 

The doctor shook his head despondently. 

“ There’s nothing to fight with in her case,” he said, “ and 
there’s very little to fall back upon. I can’t make her out. 
She has gone off just like a girl who was simply fretting 
herself to death ; and yet, if she’s fond of her husband, 
what in Heaven’s name is there for her to fret about? ” 

“ Nothing,” answered his wife. “ It’s just a delicate con- 
stitution, that’s all. She’s like one of those grape hyacinths 
that will never stand upright in a vase. The stem isn’t 
strong enough.” 

Allegra was all sympathy and affection. She would go 


228 


ALL ALONG THE RLVER. 


with them — yes, to the end of the world. To go to San 
Remo would be, of course, delightful. 

“ It is a deliciously paintable place, I know,” she said, 
“ for I have seen bits of scenery often enough in the exhi- 
bitions. I shall work prodigiously and earn a* small 
fortune.” 

She told her brother in the most delicate way that she 
meant to pay her own expenses in this Italian tour ; for, of 
course, when Isola should be strong enough, they would go 
about a little, and see the Wonderland of Italy. 

Martin protested warmly against any such arrangement. 

“ Then I shall not go,” she exclaimed. “ Do you think 
me one of the incapable young women of the old school — 
unable to earn a sixpence, and wanting to be paid for and 
taken care of like a child ? I would have you to know, sir, 
that I am one of the young women of the new school, who 
travel third-class, ride on the tops of omnibuses, and earn 
their own living.” 

“ But I shall take a house at San Remo, Allegra. Do you 
expect me to turn innkeeper — charge you for your bed and 
board ? ” 

“ Oh, you are monstrously proud. You can do as you 
like in your own house, I suppose. But all traveling and 
hotel expenses will be my affair, remember that.” 

“ And you don't mind leaving Trelasco ! ” 

“I am like Ruth. You are my home and my country. 
Where thou goest, I will go.” 

“ And Captain Hulbert — how will he like to lose you ?” 

“What am I to Captain Hulbert?” she asked, trying to 
laugh off the question, but blushing deeply as she bent over 
her color-box, suddenly interested in the littered contents. 

“ A great deal, I fancy, though he may not have found 
plain speech for his feelings yet a while.” 

“ If — if you are not a very foolish person, and there is 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


229 


any foundation for your absurd idea, Captain Hulbert will 
know where to find us. He can spread his wings and fol- 
low.” 

“ The Vendetta t Yes, she is pretty familiar with the bays 
and bights of the Mediterranean. No doubt he will follow 
us, dear. But I should like him to speak out before we 
go.” 

“Then I’m afraid you will be disappointed. He likes 
coming here — he likes you and Isola, and perhaps he likes 
me, pretty well, after a fashion ; but sailors are generally 
fickle, are they not ? And if he is at all like his brother, 
Lord Lostwithiel, who seems to have a dreadful reputation, 
judging by the way people talk of him here ” 

“ He is not like his N brother in character or disposition. 
If he were, I should be very sorry for my sister to marry 
him.” 

“ Have you such a very bad opinion of his brother ? ” 
asked Allegra, shocked and grieved that anyone closely 
allied to John Hulbert should bear an evil repute. 

“ Perhaps that would be too much to say. I know so 
little about him. I have scarcely seen him since he was 
a lad — only I have heard things which have prejudiced 
me,” continued Disney, lapsing into moody thoughtful- 
ness. 

Was it not Mr. Crowther’s insolence, and that alone, 
which had prejudiced him against Lostwithiel — had made 
the very name hateful to him ? Yes, that was the cause of 
his aversion. He had disproved those insolent insinua- 
tions ; he had exploded the covert slander and rebuked 
the slanderer ; but he had not forgotten. The wound 
still rankled. 


230 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

“ NO SUDDEN FANCY OF AN ARDENT BOY. ” 

It was Christmas Eve. All things were arranged for de- 
parture on the 28th, which would give time for their arrival 
at San Remo on New Year’s Day. They were to travel by 
easy stages, by Amiens, Basle, and Lucerne. A good deal 
of luggage had been sent off in advance, and trunks 
and portmanteaus were packed, ready for the start ; so 
that the travelers could take their ease during the few days 
of Christmas church-going and festivity. Isola’s spirits 
had improved wonderfully since the journey had been de- 
cided upon. 

“ It seems like beginning a new life, Martin,” she told 
her husband. “ I feel ever so much better already. I’m 
afraid I’m an impostor, and that you are taking a great deal 
of unnecessary trouble on my account.” 

It was such a relief to think that she would see Van- 
sittart Crowther no more, that she could wander where she 
pleased without the hazard of meeting that satyr-like 
countenance, those pale protruding eyes, with malevolent 
stare — such a relief to know that she would be in a new 
country, where no one would know anything about her, or 
have any inclination to gossip about her. Something of 
her old gayety and interest in life revived at the prospect 
of those new surroundings. 

They were to put up at a hotel for the first few days, so 
as to take their time in looking for a villa. Two servants 
were to go with them — the colonel’s coachman and handy- 
man, who was an old soldier, and could turn his hand to 
anything in house, or stable, or garden ; and the baby’s 
nurse, a somewhat masterful person of seven and twenty, 
from the Fatherland, surnamed Grunhaupt, but known in 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


231 


the family by the less formidable domestic diminutive Lott- 
chen. Other hirelings would be obtained at San Remo, 
but these two were indispensable — Holford, the coachman, 
to bear all burdens, and Lottchen to take charge of the 
baby, to whom life was supposed to be impossible in any 
other care. 

It was Christmas Eve — the mildest Christmas that had 
been known for a long time, even in this sheltered corner 
of the coast. Allegra had been busy all the morning, 
helping in the church, decorations, and co-operating with 
Mr. Colfox in various arrangements for the comfort of the 
very old and feeble, and the invalids, among the cottages 
scattered over the length and breadth of a large parish. 
She had walked a good many miles, and she had stood for 
an hour in the church, toiling at the decoration of the font, 
with ferns, arbutus, and berberis foliage, in all their varieties 
of color, from the darkest bronze to vivid crimson, starred 
with the whiteness of Christmas roses ; while the Miss Crow- 
thers lavished the riches of the Glenaveril hot-houses upon 
the pulpit, keeping themselves studiously aloof from Miss 
Leland. 

Not a jot cared Allegra for their aloofness. She dis- 
liked their father, and she knew that her brother detested 
him, without having any clear idea of the cause. She was 
so thoroughly loyal to Martin that she would have deemed 
it treason to like anyone whom he disliked ; so, had the 
daughters of Glenaveril been the most lovable young 
women in Cornwall, she would have considered it her duty 
to hold them at arm’s length. Glenaveril and all its be- 
longings were taboo. 

She was very tired when she went home at four o’clock, 
just on the edge of dusk here— pitch dark, no doubt, in 
London and other great cities, where the poor, pinched 
faces were flitting to and fro in the fitful glare of the gas, 


ALL ALONG THE ELVER. 


232 

intent on buying a Christmas dinner to fit the slenderest 
resources. Here, in this quiet valley, the reflected sunglow 
still brightened sky, sea, land, and river ; and the lamp had 
not yet been lighted in the hall or drawing room at the 
Angler’s Rest. 

There was a pleasant alternation of firelight and shadow 
in the long double room, the flames leaping up every now 
and then, and lighting wall and bookcase, picture and bust, 
the blue and red of the Mandarin jars, and the golden 
storks on the black Japanese screen ; but it was such a 
capricious light that it did not show Allegra someone sitting 
in Martin Disney’s deep elbow chair, a person who sat and 
watched her with an admiring smile, as she flung off her 
little felt hat and fur cape, and stretched her arms above 
her head in sheer weariness, a graceful, picturesque figure, 
in her plain brown serge gown, belted round the supple 
waist, and clasped at the throat, like Enid’s, and with 
never an ornament except the oxydized silver clasps, and 
the serviceable chatelaine hanging at her side. 

The tea-table was set ready in front of the fire, a large 
Egyptian brass tray on bamboo legs. But there was no 
sign of Isola ; so Miss Leland poured out a cup of tea and 
began to drink it, still unconscious of a pair of dark eyes 
watching her from the shadow of the big armchair. 

“ And am I to have no tea, Miss Leland ? ” asked a 
voice out of the darkness. 

Allegra gave a little scream, and almost dropped her cup. 

“ Good gracious ! ” she exclaimed. “ How can you 
startle anyone like that ? How do you know that I have 
not heart disease ?” 

“ I would as soon suspect the goddess Hygeia of that, 
or any other ailment,” said Captain Hulbert, rising to his 
full six feet two, out of the low chair in the dark corner by 
the bookcase. “ Forgive me for my bearishness in sitting 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 




here while you were in the room. I could not resist the 
temptation to sit and watch you for a minute or two while 
you were unconscious of my presence. It was like look- 
ing at a picture. While you are talking I am so intent 
upon what you say, and what you think, that I almost for- 
get to consider what you are like. To-night I could gaze 
undistracted.” 

“ What absolute nonsense you talk,” said Allegra, with 
the sugar-tongs poised above the basin. “ One lump — or 
two ! ” 

“ One, two, three — anything you like — up to a million.” 

“ Do you know that you nearly made me break a tea- 
cup — one of mother’s dear old Worcester tea-cups ? I 
should never have forgiven you.” 

“ But as you didn’t drop the tea-cup, I hope you do for- 
give me for my stolen contemplation, for sitting in my 
corner there and admiring you in the firelight ? ” 

“ Firelight is very becoming. No doubt I looked better 
than in the daytime.” 

“ And you forgive me ? ” 

“ I suppose so. It is hardly worth while to be angry with 
you. I shall be a thousand miles away next week. I could 
not carry my resentment so far. It would cool on the 
journey.” 

“ A thousand miles is not far for the Vendetta , Miss 
Leland. She would make light of crossing the Pacific — for 
a worthy motive.” 

“ I don’t know anything about motives ; but I thought 
you were fairly established at The Mount, and that you had 
made an end of your wanderings.” 

“ The Mount is only delightful — I might say endurable — 
when I have neighbors at the Angler’s Rest.” 

“ Martin will let this house, perhaps, and you may have 
pleasant neighbors in the new people.” 


234 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


“ I am not like the domestic cat. It is not houses I care 
for, but individuals. My affections would not transfer 
themselves to the new tenants.” . 

“How can you tell that ? You think of them to-night as 
strangers — and they seem intolerable. You would like 
them after a week, and be warmly attached to them at the 
end of a mouth. Why, you have known us for less than 
three months, and we fancy ourselves quite old friends.” 

“ Oh, Miss Leland, is our friendship only fancy ? Will a 
thousand miles make you forget me? ” 

“ No, we could not any of us be so ungrateful as to forget 
you,” answered Allegra, struggling against growing embar- 
rassment, wondering if this tender tone, these vague noth- 
ings, were drifting toward a declaration, or were as simply 
meaningless as much of the talk between men and women. 
“ We can’t forget how kind you have been, and what de- 
lightful excursions we have had on the Vendetta." 

“ The Vendetta will be at San Remo when you want her, 
Allegra. She will be as much at your command there as 
she has been here ; and her skipper will be as much your 
slave as he is here — as he has been almost ever since he saw 
your face.” 

This was not small talk. This meant something very 
serious. He had called her Allegra, and she had not 
reproved him ; he had taken her hand, and she had not 
withdrawn it. In the next instant, she knew not how, his 
arm was round her waist, and her head, weary with the long 
day’s work and anxieties, was resting contentedly on his 
shoulder, while his lips set their first kiss, tenderly, rever- 
ently almost, on her fair broad brow. 

“ Allegra, this means yes, does it not ? Our lives have 
flowed on together so peacefully, so happily, since last 
October. They are to mingle and flow on together to the 
great sea, are they not, love — the sea of death and eternity ?” 


ALL ALONG TILE RIVER. 


2 35 


“ Do you really care for me ? ” 

“ Do I really adore you ? Yes, dear love. With all my 
power of adoration.” 

“ But you must have cared for other girls before now. I 
can’t believe that I am the first.” 

“ Believe, at least, that you will be the last, as you are the 
only woman I ever asked to be my wife.” 

“ Is that really, really true ?” 

“ It is as true as the needle to the north.” 

“ Yet they say that sailors ” 

“ Are generally tolerable dancers, and popular in a ball- 
room, especially when they are the givers of the ball — that 
they can talk to pretty women without feeling abashed — 
and that they contrive to get through a good deal of flirting 
without singeing their wings. I have waltzed with a good 
many nice girls in my time, Allegra, and I have sat out a 
good many waltzes. Yet I am here at your side, honestly 
and devotedly your own : and I have never loved any other 
woman with the love I feel for you. No other woman has 
ever held my whole heart ; no, not for a single hour.” 

“ You make nice distinctions,” said Allegra, gently dis- 
engaging herself from his arm, and looking at him with a 
faint, shy smile, very doubtful, yet very anxious to believe. 
“ I am dreadfully afraid that all this fine talk means noth- 
ing more than you would say to any of your partners, if you 
happened to be sitting out a waltz.” 

“ Should I ask any of my partners to be my wife, do you 
think?” 

“ Oh, you can withdraw that to-morrow — forget and 
ignore it. We may both consider it only a kind of under- 
the-mistletoe declaration, meaning no more than a mistle- 
toe kiss. I believe when English people were domestic 
and kept Christmas, the head of the family would have 
kissed his cook if he had met her under the mistletoe.” 


236 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


“ Allegra, is it not cruel of you to be jocose when I am 
so tremendously serious ? ” 

“ What if I don’t believe in your seriousness ? ” 

“ Is this only a polite way of refusing me ?” he asked, 
beginning to be offended, not understanding that this non- 
sense talk was a hasty defense against overpowering emo- 
tion, that she was not sure of him, and was desperately 
afraid of betraying herself. “ Am I to understand that 
you don’t care a straw for me ? ” 

“ No, no, no,” she cried eagerly ; “ as a friend, I like you 
better than anyone else in the world ; only I don’t want to 
give you more than friendship till I can trust you well 
enough to believe in your love.” 

“ Prove it, Allegra,” he cried, clasping her waist again 
before she was aware. “ Put me to any test or any trial — 
impose any duty upon me. Only tell me that if I come 
through the ordeal you will be my wife.” 

“You are not in a hurry to fetter yourself, I hope,” she said. 
“ I am in a hurry ; I long for those sweet fetters by which 
your love will hold me. I want to be anchored by my 
happiness.” 

“ Give me a year of freedom, a year for art and earnest 
work in Italy, a year for Martin and Isola, who both want 
me ; and if this night year you are still of the same mind, 
I will be your wife. I will not engage you. You may be as 
free as air to change your mind and love someone else ; 
but I will promise to be true to you and to this talk of ours 
till the year’s end — one year from to-night.” 

“ I accept your sentence, though it is severe ; but I don’t 
accept my freedom. Iam your slave for. a year. I shall 
be your slave when the year is out. I am yours, and yours 
alone, for life. And now give me that cup of tea, Allegra, 
which you have not poured out yet, and let us fancy our- 
selves Darby and Joan.” 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


237 


“ Darby and Joan ! ” echoed Allegra, as she filled his cup. 
“ Must we be like that, old and prosy, sitting by the fire, 
while life goes by us outside. It seems sad that there 
should be no alternative between old age and untimely 
death.” 

“ It is sad ; but the world is made so. And then Provi- 
dence steeps elderly people in a happy hallucination. They 
generally forget that they are old ; or at least they forget 
that they ever were young, and they think young people so 
ineffably silly that youth itself seems despicable to their 
sober old minds. But you and I have a long life to the 
good, dear love, before the coming of gray hairs and 
elderly prejudices.’* 

And then he began to talk of ways and means, as if they 
were going to be married next week. 

“ We shall have enough for bread and cheese, love,” he 
said. “ I am better off than a good many younger sons ; 
for a certain old grandmother in our family married with 
a settlement which provided for the younger branches. It 
is quite possible that Lostwithiel may never marry — indeed, 
he seems to me very decided against matrimony ; and, in that 
case, those who come after us must inherit title and estate 
in days to come.” 

“ Pray don’t talk so,” cried Allegra, horrified. “ It 
sounds as if you were speculating upon your brother’s 
death.” 

“ On Lostwithiel’s death. Not for worlds. God bless 
him, wherever he may be! You don’t know how fond we 
two fellows are of each other. Only when a man is going 
to be married it behooves him to think even of the remote 
future. I shall have to talk to the colonel, remember ; and 
he will expect me to be explicit and businesslike.” 

“ I hope you don’t think Martin mercenary,” said Allegra. 
“ There never was a man who set less value on money. It 


238 


ALL ALONG THE RLVEK. 


wouldn’t make any difference to him if you had not a 
penny. And as for me, I have a little income from my 
mother — more than enough to buy frocks and things — and 
beyond that I can earn my own living. So you really 
needn’t trouble yourself about me.” 

There was a touching simplicity in her speech, mingled 
with a slight flavor of audacity, as of an emancipated young 
woman, which amused her lover, reminding him of a heroine 
of Murger’s, or Musset’s, a brave little grisette, who was 
willing to work hard for th tminage a deux, and who wanted 
nothing from her lover but love. He looked into the 
bright, frank face, radiant in the fire-glow, and he told him- 
self that this was just the one woman for whom his heart 
had kept itself empty, like a temple waiting for its God, in 
all the years of his manhood. And now the temple doors 
had opened wide, the gates had been lifted up, and the 
goddess had marched to her place, triumphant and all- 
conquering. 

The clock on the mantelpiece struck six, and the old 
eight-day clock in the hall followed like a solemn echo. 
Captain Hulbert started up. “ So late ! Why, we have 
been talking for nearly two hours ! ” he exclaimed, “ and I 
have a budget of letters to write for the night mail. Good- 
by, darling — or I’ll say au revoir , for I’ll walk down again 
after dinner, and get half an hour’s chat with Disney, if 
you don’t think it will be too late for me to see him.” 

“ You know he is always pleased to see you — we are not 
very early people — and this is Christmas Eve. We were to 
sit round the fire and tell ghost-stories, don’t you remem- 
ber ?” 

“ Of course we were. I shall be here soon after nine, 
and I shall think over all the grizzly legends I ever heard, 
as I come down the hill.” 

He went reluctantly, leaving her standing by the fire, a 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER . 


239 


contemplative figure with downcast eyes. At a little later 
stage in their engagement no doubt she would have gone 
with him to the door, or even out to the garden gate, for a 
lingering parting under the stars — but there was a shyness 
about them both in this sweet dim beginningof their union, 
when it was so strange to each to have any claim upon the 
other. 

“How lightly she took the whole business,” Captain 
Hulbert said to himself as he went up the hill. “ Yet her 
voice trembled now and then — and her hand was deadly 
cold when first I clasped it. I think she loves me. A 
year,” — snapping his fingers gayly at the stars — “ what is a 
year ? A year of bliss if it be mostly spent with her. 
Besides, long engagements are apt to dwindle. I have seen 
such engagements — entered on solemnly like ours to- 
night — shrink to six months, or less. Why should one 
linger on the threshold of a new life, if one knows it is 
going to be completely happy ? ” 

.The blissful lover had not been gone five minutes when 
Isola came creeping into the room, and put her arm round 
Allegra’s neck and kissed her flushed cheek. 

“Why, Isa, where have you been hiding all this even- 
ing ? ” 

“ I had fallen asleep in my room, just half an hour before 
tea, and when I awoke it was five o’clock, and Lottchen 
told me you and Captain Hulbert were in the drawing 
room. And as I know you two have always so much to 
talk about, I thought I wouldn’t disturb you. So I let 
Lottchen make tea for me in the nursery, and I stayed 
there to play with baby. And here you are all in the 
dark.” 

“ Oh, we had the firelight — Parker forgot to bring the 
lamp.” 

“ And you forgot to ring for it,” said Isola, going over 


240 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


to the bow-window, and drawing back a curtain. “What 
a lovely sky. Who would think it was Christmas-time ? ” 

The moon was in her second quarter, shining brilliantly, 
in the deep purple of a sky almost without a cloud. 

“ Will you put on your hat and jacket and come for a 
stroll in the garden, Isa ? ” asked Allegra. “ It is a mild, 
dry night, and I don’t think the air can hurt you.” 

“ Hurt me ! It will do me all the good in the world. 
Yes, I shall be ready in a moment.” 

They went out into the hall, where Allegra packed her 
sister-in-law carefully in a warm fur-lined jacket, and flung 
a tartan shawl round her own shoulders. Then they went 
out into the garden, and to the lawn by the river. The 
moon was shining on the running water,. brightly, coldly, 
clear, while the meadows on the opposite bank were wrapped 
in faint white mists, which made the landscape seem unreal. 

“ Are you not too tired for walking here after your long 
day, Allegra ? ” Isola asked, when they had gone up and 
down the path two or three times. 

“ Tired, no. I could walk to Tywardreath, I could walk 
to the Mausoleum. Shall we go there ? The sea must be 
lovely under that moon.” 

“ My dearest, it is nearly seven o’clock, and you have 
been tramping about all day. If you are not very tired, 
you must be very much excited, Allegra. I am longing to 
hear what it all means.” 

“ Are you really, now ? Do you care about it, Isola ? 
Can you, who are firmly anchored in the haven of marriage, 
feel any sentimental interest in other people, tossing about 
on the sea of courtship ? Martin is to be told everything 
to-night — so you may as well know all about it now. You 
like Captain Hulbert, don’t you, Isola ?” 

“ I do, indeed. I like him, and believe in him.” 

“ Thank Heaven ! I should have been miserable if you 


ALL ALONG THE ELVER. 


241 


had doubted or disliked him. He is to be my husband 
some day, Isa, if Martin approve, but not for a year, at 
least. Tell me, dear, are you glad ? ” 

“ Yes, I am very glad. God bless you, Allegra, and make 
your life happy, and free from care ! ” 

She broke down with those last faltered words, and Al- 
legra discovered that she was crying. 

“ My dearest Isa, don’t cry. I shall fancy you are sorry : 
that you think him unworthy.” 

“ No, no, no. It is not that. He is worthy. He is all 
that I could desire in the man who is to be your husband. 
No, I was only thinking how completely happy you and he 
must be, how cloudless your life promises to be. God 
keep you, and guard you, dear ! And may you never know 
the pain of parting with the husband you love, with your 
protector and friend, as I have known it.” 

“ Yes, love ; but that is all past and done with. There 
are to be no more farewells for you and Martin.” 

“ No, it is past, thank God ! Yet one cannot forget. I 
am very glad Captain Hulbert has left the navy : that his 
profession cannot call him away from you.” 

“ No, he is an idle man, I dare say the time will come 
when I shall be plagued with him, and be almost obliged to 
suggest that he should keep race-horses, or go on the Stock 
Exchange, to occupy his time. I have heard women say 
that it is terrible to have a stay-at-home husband. Yet 
Martin is never de trop — but then Martin can bury himself 
in a book. He has no fidgety ways.” 

“ How lightly you talk, Allegra.” 

“ Perhaps that is because my heart is heavy — heavy, not 
with grief and care, but with the burden of perplexity and 
surprise, with the fear that comes of a great joy.” 

“ You do love him, then ? ” said Isola earnestly. “ You 
are glad ? ” 


242 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


“ I am very glad. I am glad with all my heart/' 

“ God bless you, dearest ! I rejoice in your happiness.” 

They kissed again, this time with tears on both sides ; for 
Allegra was now quite overcome, and sobbed out her emo- 
tion upon her sister’s neck, they two standing clasped in 
each other’s arms beside the river. 

“ When I am dead, Allegra, remember always that I loved 
you, and that I rejoiced in your happiness as if it were my 
own.” 

“ When you are dead ! How dare you talk like that, 
when we are taking you away to get well and strong, and to 
live ever so many years beyond your golden wedding ? Was 
there ever such ingratitude ? ” 

The odor of tobacco stole on the evening air, and they 
heard Martin’s firm tread approaching along the gravel 
path. 

Isola put her arm through his, while Allegra ran into the 
house, and husband and wife walked up and down two or 
three times in the darkness, she telling him all about the 
wonderful thing that had happened. 

“You are glad, are you not, Martin ? You are as glad 
as I am ? ” 

“ Are you so very glad ? ” 

“ Yes, for I know that Allegra loves him, has loved him 
for a long time.” 

“ Meaning six weeks or so — allowing a fortnight for the 
process of falling in love. Is that what you call a long 
time, Isola ? ” 

“ Weeks are long sometimes,” she answered slowly, as 
if her thoughts had wandered into another channel. 

“ Well, if Allegra is pleased, I suppose I ought to be 
content,” said Disney. “ Hulbert seems a fine frank fel- 
low, and I have never heard anything to his discredit. He 
was popular in the navy, and was considered a man of 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


243 


marked ability. I dare say people will call him a good 
match for Allegra, so long as Lostwithiel remains a 
bachelor." 

“ No one can be too good for Allegra, and only the best 
of men can be good enough. If I had my own way, I 
should have liked her to remain always unmarried, and to 
care for nothing but her nephew and you. I should have 
liked to think of her as always with you by and by." 

The triangular dinner party was gayer that evening than 
it had been for a long time. Isola was in very high spirits, 
and her husband was delighted at the change from that 
growing apathy which had so frightened him. The ladies 
had scarcely left the table when Captain Hulbert arrived, 
and was ushered into the dining room, where Martin Disney 
was smoking his after-dinner pipe in the chimney corner — 
the old chimney corner of that original Angler’s Rest, 
which had been a humble homestead two hundred years 
ago. 

The two men shook hands, and then John Hulbert seated 
himself on the opposite side of the hearth, and they began 
to talk earnestly of the future ; Martin Disney speaking 
with fond affection of the sister who had been to him almost 
as a daughter. 

“ Her mother was the sweetest and truest of women," he 
said, “ and her father had one of the most refined and 
delicate natures I ever met with in a man. I do not know 
that he was altogether fitted for the Church. He was 
wanting in energy and decision, or force of character ; but 
he was a firm believer, pure minded and disinterested, and 
he was an artist to the tips of his fingers. It is from him 
Allegra inherits her love of art ; only while he was content 
to trifle with art she has worked with all the power of her 
strong, resolute temperament. She inherits that from her 
mother’s line, which was a race of workers, men with whom 


244 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


achievement was a necessity of existence — men who fought, 
and men who thought — sword and gown,” 

Disney smiled at the stern condition of a year’s proba- 
tion which Allegra had imposed upon her lover. 

“ Such sentences are very often remitted,” he said. 

“ I own to having some hope of mercy,” replied Captain 
Hulbert. “ People have an idea that May marriages are 
unlucky ; and perhaps we had better defer to a popular 
superstition. But it seems to me that June is a capital 
month for a yachtsman’s honeymoon ; and, if I can persuade 
my dearest to remit half my period of probation, and fix 
the first of June for our wedding, I should be just half a 
year happier than I am now.” 

“ Have you any notion yet what kind of life you are to 
lead after your marriage. I hope it will not be a roving 
life. Isola and I would like to have our sister near us.” 

“ And Allegra and 1 would like to study your liking,” 
laughed Hulbert. “ We may wander a little on summer 
seas, but we will have our fixed abode, and it shall be near 
you. So long as Lostwithiel is a bachelor, we can make 
our home at The Mount ; but, fond as I am of that dear old 
place, I should be glad to see my brother married. There 
is something amiss in his present mode of life ; and I have 
but too strong reason to fear that he is not a happy 
man.” 

“ Have you any idea of the cause of his unhappiness ? ” 

“ Only speculative ideas — mere theories that may be 
without foundation in fact. I fancy that he has burnt the 
lamp of life a little too furiously, and that the light has 
grown dim in the socket. The after-taste of a fiery youth 
is the taste of dust and ashes. There may be memories, 
too — memories of some past folly — which are vivid enough 
to poison the present. I know that he is unhappy. I have 
tried to find out the cause ; and it all ends in this — an 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 24$ 

obstinate reserve on his part, and mere theorizing on 
mine.” 

“ I have heard that he lived in a bad set after he left the 
University ? ” 

“ A bad set — yes, that is it. A man who begins life in 
a certain circle is like a workman who gets his arm or his 
leg caught unawares in a machine worked by steam power. 
In an instant he is entangled past rescue. He is gone. 
He has taken the wrong road. Ten years afterward, per- 
haps, when he is bald and wrinkled, he may pull himself 
up on the downward track and try to get rid of a bad repu- 
tation and make a fresh start ; but those fresh starts rarely 
end in a winning race. I am very sorry for my brother. He 
is a warm-hearted fellow, with a good deal of talent ; and 
he ought not to have made a bad thing of his life.” 

“ Let us hope that he has pulled up in time, and that he 
may get a young wife before he is many years older. I have 
no desire that my sister’s son should be a peer. I only 
want to see her happy with a husband who shall be worthy 
of her.” 


CHAPTER XIX. 

“I HAVE YOU STILL, THE SUN COMES OUT AGAIN.” 

The new year was just a week old, and Isola and Allegra 
were standing on a terraced hillside in a country where 
January has noontides as brilliant and balmy as an English 
June. They had traveled up that almost perpendicular hill 
in a gloomy landau drawn by a pair of horses ; and now, 
near the summit of the hill, on the last of those many ter- 
races that zigzag up the face of the cliff, they had alighted 
from the carriage, and were standing side by side upon the 
broad white road, at an angle where the cliff dipped sud- 
denly, clothed with the wild growth of stunted olive and 


246 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER . 


bushy pine, down and down to the abyss where the blue sea 
looked like a sapphire at the bottom of a pit. They stood 
and gazed, and gazed again, almost bewildered by the 
infinite beauty and variety of that dazzling prospect. 

Below them, in the shelter of the land-locked bay, 
Ospedaletti’s pavilioned casino shone whitely out of a gar- 
den of palm and cactus, with terrace and balustrade 
vanishing down to the sea. To the left, the steep pro- 
montory of Bordighera jutted far out into the blue ; and 
over the rugged crest of the hill Mentone’s long white line 
lay in a gentle curve, almost level with the sea — a strip of 
vivid white between the blue of the water and the gloom 
of that great barren mountain wall which marks the begin- 
ning of modern Italy. And beyond, again, showed the 
twin towers of Monaco ; and further still, in the dim blue 
distance, one saw the battlemented line of the Esterelles, 
dividing the fairyland of the Riviera from the workaday 
prose of shipbuilding Toulon and commercial Marseilles. 

On this side of those pine-clad mountains there were 
only pleasure and fancy, wealth, fashion, the languid 
invalid, and the feverish gambler ; on the other side there 
were toilers and speculators, the bourse and the factory, 
the world of stern realities. 

To the right, deep down with the hills, lay the little port 
of San Remo, with its rugged stone pier and its shabby old 
houses, and the old, old town climbing up the steep ascent 
to that isolated point where the white dome of the sanctu- 
ary shone out against the milky azure of the noontide sky ; 
and further and further away stretched the long line of the 
olive-clothed hills to the purple distance, where the sea- 
men’s church of Madonna della Guardia stands boldly out 
between sky and sea, as if it were a halfway house on the 
upward road to heaven. 

“ How lovely it all is ! ” cried Allegra. “ But don’t you 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER, 


247 


feel that one careless step upon that flowery edge yonder 
would send us whirling down the cliffs to awful, inevitable 
death ? When that man passed us just now with his loaded 
cart, I felt sick with fear — the wheels seemed to graze the 
edge of the abyss as the horse crept slowly along — poor 
stolid brute ! — unconscious of his danger. It is a dreadful 
drive, Isola, this zigzag road to Colla — slant above slant, 
backward and forward, up the face of this prodigious 
cliff. I had to'shut my eyes at every turn of the road, 
when the world below seemed to swim in a chaos of light 
and color — so beautiful, so terrible ! Do you seethe height 
of those cliffs, terrace above terrace, hill above hill ? Why, 
that level road at the very bottom is the top of a taller 
cliff than those I used to think so appalling at Broadstairs 
and Ramsgate ! ” 

“I don’t think it would make much difference to a man 
who fell over the edge whether he fell here or in the Isle of 
Thanet,” said Martin Disney, as he stood, with his arm 
drawn through his wife’s, sweeping the prospect with his 
landscape glass. 

“ Oh, but it would ! One would be only a sudden shock 
and a plunge into the sea, or swift annihilation on the rocks 
below ; but from this awful height, to go whirling down, 
plucked at here by an olive branch, or there by a jagged 
rock, yet always whirling downward, striking and rebound- 
ing from edge to edge, faster, and faster, and faster, till one 
were dashed into a shapeless mass on that dazzling white 
road yonder,” protested Allegra, breathless at the horror 
her imagination had painted. “ And to think of people 
living up there in the clouds, and going to sleep every 
night with the knowledge of this mighty wall and that 
dreadful abyss in their minds ! ” she concluded, pointing 
upward to where the little white town of Colla straggled 
along the edge of the hill. 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


248 

They were going up to see the pictures and books in the 
little museum by the church. It was their first excursion 
since their arrival in Italy, for Martin Disney had been 
anxious that his wife should be thoroughly rested after her 
long journey, before she was called upon to make the 
slightest exertion. She was looking better and stronger 
already, they were both agreed ; and she was looking hap- 
pier, a fact which gave her husband infinjte satisfaction. 
They had come by the St. Gothard, taking their ease as 
they came along the familiar route, the way they had 
traveled on their road to Venice and the East. They had 
rested a night at Dover, and a night at Basle, and had 
stopped at Lucerne for three days, and again a couple of 
days at Milan, and again at Genoa, exploring the city, 
and the Campo Santo, in a leisurely way ; Allegra exalted 
out of herself almost by the delight of those wonderful col- 
lections in the palaces of the Via Balbi — the Veroneses, the 
Titians, the Guidos — Isola languidly admiring, languidly 
wondering at everything, but only deeply moved when they 
came to the strange city of the dead, the scenic representa- 
tion of sickness, calamity, grief, and dissolution, in every 
variety of realistic representation or of classic emblem. 
Sculptured scenes of domestic sorrow, dying fathers, kneel- 
ing children, weeping widows — whole families convulsed in 
the throes of that last inevitable parting ; the death of 
youth and beauty ; the fallen rose-wreath ; the funeral urn ; 
the lowered torch ; the ball dress ; hyacinth and butterfly ; 
Psyche and Apollo ; the fatal river and the fatal boat ; the 
grimness and beauty — the actual and the allegorical curi- 
ously mixed in the sculptured images that line the cold 
white colonnades, where the footsteps of holiday-makers 
echo with a sepulchral sound under the vaulted roof. Here 
Isola was intensely interested, and insisted on going up the 
marble steps, flight after flight, and to the very summit of 


ALL ALONG THE RLVER. 249 

the hill of graves, with its wide-reaching prospect of moun- 
tain, and fort, and city, and sea. 

“ Think how hard it must be to lie here and know nothing 
of all that loveliness,” she said, her eyes widening with 
wonder as they gazed across the varied perspective of vale 
and mountain, out to the faint blue sea. “ How hard, how 
hard ! Do they feel it and know it, Allegra? Can this I — 
which feels so keenly, which only sleeps in order to enter a 
new world of dreams — busier, and more crowded, and more 
eventful than the real world — can this consciousness go out 
all at once like the flame of a candle — and nothing, nothing, 
nothing be left?” 

“ They are not here,” said Allegra, with gentle serious- 
ness. “ It is only the husk that lies here — the flower-seed 
has been carried off in God’s great wind of death — and the 
flower is blossoming somewhere else.” 

“ One allegory is as good as another,” said Isola. “ We 
can but console ourselves with symbols. I don’t like this 
crowded city of the dead, Allegra. For God’s sake don’t 
let Martin have me buried here, if I should die at San 
Remo.” 

“ Dearest Isola, why will you harbor such ghastly 
thoughts?” 

“ Oh, it was only a passing fancy. I thought it just pos- 
sible that, if I were to die while we are in Italy, Martin 
might think to honor me by having me laid in this splendid 
cemetery. He seemed so struck by the grandeur and 
beauty of the monuments, just now, when we were in those 
colonnades down yonder.” 

Colonel Disney had lingered a little way off to look at 
Mazzini’s monument. He came up to them now, and 
hurried them back to the gate, where their carriage was 
waiting. And so ended their last afternoon in Genoa ; and 
the most vivid picture of the city and its surroundings that 


250 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


Isola carried away with her was the picture of those marble 
tombs upon the hill, and those tall and gloomy cypresses 
which are the trees of death. 

Yes, she was better, gayer, and more active — more like 
the girl-wife whom Martin Disney had carried home to 
Cornwall, prouder than Tristan when he sailed away with 
Irish Yseult. 

The Italian sunshine had revived his fading flower, Dis- 
ney told himself, ready to love all things in a land that 
had brought the smiles back to his wife’s pale lips, and a 
new and delicate bloom to her wan cheeks. Yes, she was 
happier than she had been of late in Cornwall ; there 
could be no doubt as to that. 

They stayed at a hotel for more than a week, while they 
deliberated upon the choice of a villa. They found one at 
last, which seemed to realize their ideas of perfection. It 
was not a grand or stately dwelling. No marble bell-tower 
or architectural loggia attracted the eye of the passing 
pedestrian. It was roomy, and bright, and clean, and airy, 
built rather in the Swiss than the Italian style ; and it stood 
upon the slope of the hill on the west side of the town, with 
nothing but olive-woods between its terraced garden and 
the road that skirted the sea. It was a reminiscence of the 
Alps, built by a retired merchant of Zurich, and its owner 
had called it Lauter Brunnen. The house was at most two 
years old ; but life’s vicissitudes had left it empty for a year 
and a half, and the rent asked of Colonel Disney was much 
less than he had been prepared to pay. 

The installation was full of delight for Isola and her 
sister-in-law. The house afforded innumerable surprises, 
unexpected nooks and corners of all kinds. There were 
lovely views from every window — east, west, north, or 
south — and there was a garden full of roses, a garden made 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


251 


upon so steep a slope that it was a successsion of terraces, 
with but little intervening level ground ; and, below the 
lowest terrace, the valley stretched down to the sea, a tangle 
of gnarled old olive trees, wan and silvery, with a ruined 
gateway just seen among the foliage at the bottom of a dim 
gray glade. 

To the right, straggling along the edge of the wooded 
hill, appeared the white houses and churches, cupola, 
pinnacle, and dome of Colla, so scattered as to seem two 
towns rather than one, and with picturesque suggestions 
of architectural splendor that were hardly borne out by 
the reality, when one climbed those rugged mule-paths, 
and crossed the romantic gorge above the waterfall, and 
then upward and upward to the narrow alleys and crumb- 
ling archways, and the spacious old church with its lofty 
doorway standing high above the stony street. 

Only a few paces from Colonel Disney’s villa there was 
a stately house that had gone to ruin. The roof was off in 
some places ; there were neither floors nor windows left ; 
and the walls were open to the wind and rain — frescoed 
walls, upon which might be traced figures of saint and 
martyr, angel and madonna. There was a spacious garden, 
with an avenue of cypresses — a garden where the flowers 
had been growing wild for years, and where Isola and 
Allegra wandered and explored as they pleased. It was 
higher on the hillside than their own villa, and from the 
eastward edge of this garden they looked — across a yawning 
gulf in which lay all the lower town of San Remo — to the 
Sanctuary and the Leper Hospital, conspicuous on the crest 
of the opposite hill. 

The need for citadel and sanctuary had passed with the 
fiercer age in which they were built. Neither Saracen nor 
pirate menaced San Remo nowadays ; but the old white 


252 ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 

walls made a picturesque note in the landscape, and the 
very name of sanctuary had a romantic sound. 

The first week in the new house was like a week in fairy- 
land. The weather was peerless — a climate that makes 
people forget there is such a season as winter in the world — 
and the two girls wandered about in the olive woods and 
climbed the mule-paths all through the fresh balmy hours ; 
or in the hottest noontides sat in the deserted garden or in 
a sheltered corner near an old stone well — one of those 
wells which suggest the meeting of Isaac and Rebecca — 
and Allegra painted while Isola read to her, in the low 
sweet voice which lent new and individual music to the 
sweetest verse of her favorites, Byron, Keats, and Shelley. 

In these sequestered spots, where only a peasant woman 
laden with a basket of olives, or a padre, going from Colla 
to San Remo, ever passed within sight of them, they read 
the “Eve of St. Agnes” and the “Pot of Basil,” the 
“ Prisoner of Chillon,” “ Manfred,” and all those familiar 
lyrics and favorite passages of Shelley, which Isola held in 
her heart of hearts. The wonder-dream of “ Alastor ” — the 
passionate lament of “ Adonais,” could not seem purer or 
more spiritual than the life of these young women in those 
calm days through which January slipped into February, 
unawares, like a link in a golden chain — a chain of sunshine 
and flowers. 

In February came the carnival ; and pretty little rustic 
San Remo decked itself with bunting and greenery, and 
made believe to hold a Battle of Flowers, which had a cer- 
tain village simplicity as compared with the serried ranks 
of carriages, the fashion, and beauty, and wealth of floral 
displays, along the Promenade des Anglais, or the Croisette. 
With the carnival came the mistral, which generally seems 
to be waiting round the corner ready to leap out upon the 
flower throwers, to blight their bouquets, and blow dust 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


253 


into the eyes of beauty, and make the feeble health seekers 
cower in the corners of their flower-decked carriages. This 
Lenten season was no exception to other seasons ; and the 
calendar, which had been, as it were, in abeyance since 
New Year’s Day, came into force again, and stern and 
sterile winter said, “ Here am I. Did you think I had 
forgotten you ? ” The invalids were roughly awakened 
from their dream of Paradise, to discover that February 
even in San Remo meant February, and could not always 
be mistaken for May or June. 

Isola felt the change, though she was hardly conscious of 
it on the day of the floral battle, when she was sitting in 
a roomy landau, covered with the dark shining foliage and 
pale yellow fruit from some of those lemon trees in the 
orchard where she and Allegra had spent their morning 
hours. Allegra had planned the decorations, and had gone 
down to the coach-house to assist in the work, delighted to 
chatter with the coachman in doubtful Italian, groping 
her way in a language in which her whole stock-in-trade 
consisted of a few quotations from Dante or Petrarch, and 
all the wise saws of Dr. Riccabocca. 

“ I would have none of that horrid pepper tree which 
pervades the place with its floppy foliage and dull red 
fruit,” she told Isola, descanting on the result of her 
exertions. “ I was rather taken with the pepper trees at 
first, but I am satiated with their languid grace. They are 
like the weeping ash or the weeping willow. There is no 
real grace or beauty in them. I would rather have one of 
those cypresses towering up among the gray-green olives in 
the valley below Colla than all the pepper trees in the 
public gardens. I have used no flowers but narcissus ; no 
color but the pale gold of the lemons and the dark green 
of the leaves ; except one bit of audacity which you will 
see presently.” 


254 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


This was at noon, after two hours’ work in the coach 
house. An hour later the carriage was at the door. 

Allegra’s audacity was an Algerian curtain, a rainbow of 
vivid color, with which she had draped the back of the 
landau, hiding all the ugliness of rusty leather. The car- 
riage, or it might have been the two girlish faces in it, one 
so pale and gentle, the other so brilliant and changeful in 
its lights and shadows, made the point of attraction in the 
little procession. Everybody spoke of the two girls in the 
lemon landau, with the nice-looking, middle-aged man. 
Were they his daughters, people wondered, or his nieces ; 
and at what hotel were they staying ? It was a disappoint- 
ment to discover that they were living in that villa to the 
west of the town, out of the way of everything and every- 
body, and that they were seldom to be seen in public, except 
at the new church, where they were regular worshipers. 

“ The man is Colonel Disney, and the tall, striking, 
looking girl is his wife,” said one person better informed 
than the rest, but making a wrong selection all the same. 


CHAPTER XX. 

“THOU PARADISE OF EXILES, ITALY.” 

Isola was not quite so well after that drive in the Feb- 
ruary wind and dust. She developed a slight cough — very 
slight and inoffensive ; but still it was a cough — and the 
kind and clever physician of San Remo, who came to see 
her once a week or so, told her to be careful. Mr. Bayn- 
ham had written him a long letter about this patient, and 
and the San Remo doctor had taken very kindly to Isola 
and her sister-in-law, and the baby son in whom the whole 
family were so intensely interested. The infant had ac- 
cepted the change in his surroundings with supreme com- 


ALL ALONG THE RLVER. 


255 


plaisance, and crowed and chirruped among the lemons 
and the olives, and basked in the southern sunshine, as 
his nurse wheeled his perambulator to and fro upon the 
terraced road behind the villa — the road which lost itself 
a little way further on amid a wilderness of olives, and 
dwindled into a narrow track for man or mule. 

The flower battle was over, and the mistral had gone 
back to the great wind-cavern to lie in wait for the next 
golden opportunity ; and the sun was shining once again 
upon the hills where the oil mills nestled clinging to some 
rough ledge beside the ever-dropping waters, upon the 
labyrinthine lanes and alleys, the queer little flights of stone 
steps up which a figure like Ali Baba might generally be 
seen leading his heavily laden, long-suffering donkey ; upon 
arch and cupola, church and market place, and on the 
triple rampart of hills that shuts San Remo from the outer 
world. The Disneys had been in Italy nearly seven weeks, 
and it seemed as natural to Isola to open her eyes upon 
the broad blue waters of the Mediterranean, the gorgeous 
sunrise, and the lateen sails, as on the Fowey River and the 
hills toward Polruan. She had taken kindly to this Italian 
exile. The sun and the blue sky had exercised a healing 
influence upon that hidden wound which had once made 
her heart seem one dull, aching pain. She loved this new 
world of wood and hill, and most of all she loved the per- 
fect liberty of this distant retreat, and the consolations of 
solitude. As for the cough, or the pain in her side, or any 
of those other symptoms about which the doctor talked to 
her so gravely, she made very light of them. She was 
happy in her husband’s love, happy in his society, strolling 
with him in the olive wood, or the deserted garden, or 
down to the little toy shop parade by the sea, where the 
band played once a week ; or to the other garden in the 
town, where the same band performed on another day, and 


256 


ALL ALONG THE El FEE. 


which was dustier and less airy than the little plantation of 
palm and cactus upon the edge of the sea. She went for 
excursions with him to points of especial beauty high up 
among the hills — to the chocolate mills, to San Romolo, 
she riding a donkey, he at the animal’s side, while the guide 
trudged cheerily in the dust at the edge of the mountain 
road. In the evening she played to him, or sat by his side 
while he smoked the pipe of rest, or worked while he 
read to her. They had never been more devoted to each 
other, never more like wedded lovers than they were now. 
People who only knew them by sight talked of them admir- 
ingly, as if their love were an interesting phenomenon. 

“ He must be twenty years older than his wife,” said so- 
ciety, “ and yet they seem so happy together. It is quite 
refreshing to see such a devoted couple nowadays.” 

People always seem ready, and rather pleased, to hold 
their own age up to contempt and ridicule, as if they them- 
selves did not belong to it ; as if they were sitting aloft in 
a balloon, looking down at the foolish creatures crawling 
and crowding upon the earth, in a spirit of philosophical 
contemplation. 

One only anxiety troubled Isola at this time, and that was 
on Allegra’s account rather than her own. They had left 
England nearly two months, and as yet there had been no 
sign or token of any kind from Captain Hulbert ; not so 
much as a packet of new books or new music — not so much 
as a magazine or an illustrated paper. 

“ He asked if he might write to me, and I told him no,” 
Allegra said, rather dolefully, one morning, as they sat a 
little way from the well, Allegra engaged in painting a 
brown-skinned peasant girl of ten years old, whom she had 
met carrying olives the night before, and had forthwith en- 
gaged as a model. “ I said it would never do for us to 
begin the folly of engaged lovers, who write to each other 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


257 


about nothing, sometimes twice a day. He has been won- 
derfully obedient : yet I think he ought to have written 
once or twice in two months. He ought to have known 
that though I told him not to write, I should be very anx- 
ious to hear from him.” 

“You mustn’t be surprised at his obeying you to the 
letter, Allegra. There is a kind of simplicity about 
him, although he is very clever. He is so thoroughly frank 
and honest. It is for that I honor him.” 

“ Yes, he is very good,” sighed Allegra. “I ought not 
to have told him I would have no letter-writing. I really 
meant what I said. I wanted to give myself up to art, and 
you, for the unbroken year — to have no other thought, no 
distractions — and I knew that his letters would be a dis- 
traction — that the mere expectation of them — the look- 
ing for post time — the wondering whether I should have 
his letter by this or that post — I know all that kind of thing 
would unnerve me. My hand would have lost its power. 
You don’t know what it is when all depends upon certainty 
of touch — the fine obedience of the hand to the eye. No, 
his letters would have been a daily agitation — and yet, and 
yet I should like so much to know what he is doing — if he 
is still at The Mount — if he has any idea of coming to San 
Remo later — with his yacht — as he talked of doing.” 

“I have no doubt he will come. It would be the most 
natural thing for him to do. You will see the white sails 
some afternoon, glorified in the sunset, like that boat 
yonder with its amethyst-colored sail.” 

Isola was right in her prophecy except as to the hour of 
Captain Hulbert’s arrival. They were taking a picnic 
luncheon in a little grove of lemon and orange, wedged into 
a cleft in the hills, on the edge of a deep and narrow gorge 
down which a mountain torrent rushed to the sea. Sud- 
denly across the narrow strip of blue at the end of the vista 


ALL ALONG THE EL FEE. 


258 

came the vision of white sails, a schooner with all her 
canvas spread dazzling in the noonday sun, sailing 
toward San Remo. Allegra sat gazing at the white sails, 
but said never a word. Neither Martin Disney nor his wife 
happened to be looking that way, till the child in his nurse’s 
lap gave a sudden crow of delight. 

“ Did he see the pretty white ship, then ? ” said the nurse, 
holding him up in the sunshine. “ The beautiful white 
ship.” 

No one took any notice. The colonel was reading his 
Times , the chief link between the exile and civilization. 
Isola was intent upon knitting a soft white wool vest-, 
ment for her first born. 

Two hours later the garden gate gave a little click, and 
Captain Hulbert walked in. Allegra heard the click of 
the latch as she sat in the veranda, and ran out to meet 
him. She had been watching and expectant all the 
time, though she had held her peace about the vision of 
white sails, lest she should be suspected of hoping for her 
lover’s coming ; and, above all, lest she should be com- 
passionated with later in the day if the ship were not the 
Vendetta. 

Yes, it was he. She turned pale with delight at the 
realization of her hope. She had hardly known till this in- 
stant how much she loved him. She let him take her 
in his arms and kiss her, just as if he had been the com- 
monest sailor whose “ heart was true to Poll.” 

“ Are you really glad to see me, darling ? ” he whis- 
pered, overcome by the delight of this fond welcome. 

“ Really glad. I feel as if we had been parted for years. 
No letter to tell me where you were or what you were 
doing ! I began to doubt if you ever cared for me.” 

“ Heartless infidel, you told me not to Write ; and so I 
thought the only alternative was to come. And I have 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


2 59 


been coming for the last five weeks. We had a stiffish 
time across the Bay, and my auxiliary engine went wrong — 
nothing to trust to but canvas ; so I had to waste nearly 
a fortnight at Toulon while my ship was under repairs. 
However, here I am, and the Vendetta is safe and sound ; 
and I am your most obedient slave. How is Mrs. Dis- 
ney ? ” 

“ Not quite so well as she was two or three weeks ago. 
She improved wonderfully at first ; but she caught cold 
one bleak, blowy day, and she has started a little nervous 
kind of cough, which makes us anxious about her.” 

“ Better spirits, I hope. Not quite so mopy ? ” 

“ Her spirits have revived wonderfully. This lovely land 
has given her a new life. But there are times when she 
droops a little. She is curiously sensitive — too impression- 
able for happiness. We have a very fine preacher here— 
Father Rodwell ; you must have heard of him.” 

“ Yes, I heard of him at Oxford. He was before my time 
by some years ; but he was a celebrity, and I heard men 
talk of him. Well, what of your preacher ? Has he fallen 
in love with my Allegra — is he in the same boat as poor 
Colfox ? ” 

“ Fallen in love ? No ; he is not that kind of a man. 
He is as earnest and enthusiastic as a mediaeval monk. 
We have all been carried away by his eloquence. He 
preaches what people call awakening sermons ; and I fear 
they have been too agitating for Isola. She insists on 
hearing him ; she hangs upon his words ; but his preach- 
ing has too strong an influence upon her mind — or upon 
her nerves. I have seen the tears streaming down her 
poor pale cheeks ; I have seen her terribly overcome. She 
is too weak to bear that kind of strain. She is depressed 
all the rest of the day.” 

“ She ought not to be allowed to hear such sermons. 


260 


ALL ALONG TILE RLVER. 


Take her to another church, where some dosy old bird will 
send her comfortably to sleep.” 

“ I have tried to take her to the other church — you must 
not talk of a clergyman as a dosy old bird, sir — but she 
looked so unhappy at the mere idea of losing Father Rod- 
well’s sermons that I dare not press the matter. He comes 
to see us occasionally, and he is the cheeriest and pleasant- 
est of men ; nothing of the zealot or ascetic about him ; so 
that I am in hopes his influence may be for good in the 
long run. How long shall you be able to stop at San 
Remo ? ” 

“ Till the lady for whose sake I came shall take it into 
her head to leave the place. I have been thinking, Allegra,” 
putting his arm through hers and pacing up and down the 
terrace, with the bright expanse of sea in front of them 
and at their back the great curtain of hills encircling and 
defending them from the northern world — “ I have been 
thinking that Venice would be a charming place for you 
and me to spend next summer in — if — if — you meant six 
months instead of twelve for my probation — as I really 
think you must have done. We could be married on the 
first of June — such a pretty date for a wedding ! You 
would want to be married in Trelasco church, of course, 
on our native soil. The church in which my great-grand- 
father was married, and in which I and all my race were 
christened. We could have the yacht at Marseilles ready 
to carry us off to the south, through the delicious summer 
days and nights, all along this lovely coast, and away by 
Naples to the Adriatic. Allegra, why should we wait for 
the winter, the dreary winter, to begin our life journey? 
Let us begin it in the time of roses.” 

“Look, John !” cried Allegra, laughing, as she pointed 
to the hedge of roses in front of them and the clusters of 
creamy bloom hanging over the veranda. “ The roses 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


261 


have been blooming ever since we came to Italy. It is 
always rose-time here. You remember our reading in 
the dedication of ‘To Leeward’ how Marion Crawford 
strewed his wife’s pathway with roses on Christmas Day at 
Sorrento. We can find a flowery land for our honeymoon 
at any season of the year.” 

“ But why wait a year ? Can you not prove me trusty 
and true in less than a year ? ” 

“You are so impatient,” she said, plucking a handful of 
roses and scattering the petals at her feet. “ A year is so 
short a time.” 

“ Short, love ! Why, eight weeks have seemed an eter- 
nity to me without you ; and you honored me just now by 
saying that the time had appeared long even to you — even 
to my liege lady, sitting serene in her palace of art, paint- 
ing contadinas and their olive-faced offspring — even to you, 
whose love is as a thread of silk against a cable, compared 
to mine. Even to you, my mistress and my tyrant.” 

“ That was because you were so far away. But there 
will be nothing to hinder our seeing each other as often as 
you may find convenient. I have set my heart upon paint- 
ing steadily for a twelvemonth, without any distractions.” 

“ There is no such place as Venice for a painter. Think 
of the Misses Montalba and the splendid work they have 
done at Venice. Would you not like to be like them ? ” 

“ Would I not like to be like Apelles ? ” 

“ Well, Venice will be your treasury ; Venice will fill that 
busy brain with ideas. You shall be fed upon pictures, old 
and new — the new living pictures in the.narrow streets and 
canals; the old masters in the churches and palaces. You 
shall learn of Tintoretto and Veronese. You shall paint as 
much as you like. You shall have no distractions. We 
shall be strangers there ; can live as we choose. Summer 
is the time for Venice, Allegra. Benighted English people 


262 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER . 


have an idea that Italy is a place to winter in ; and they go 
and shiver in marble palaces, and watch the torrential rain 
beating against windows that were never meant to shut out 
bad weather. The Italians know that their land is a land 
of summer, and they know how to enjoy sunny days and 
balmy nights. You don’t know how delicious life is on the 
Lido when the night is only a brief interval of starshine 
betwixt sunset and dawn. You don’t know what a dream 
of delight it is to float along the lagoons and watch the 
lamp-lit city melt into the mists of evening, breathing faint 
echoes of music and song. A great many things of beauty 
have been turned to ugliness, Allegra, since printing and 
the steam engine were invented ; but, thank God ! Venice 
is not one of them. You will think of my plan, won’t you, 
love ? At the least, it is a thing to be considered.” 

“Anything you say is worthy to be considered, John. 
And now come in and see Isola and Martin.” 

He felt that he had gone far enough ; he felt that it were 
unwise to press the question too much at first. He meant 
to be gently persistent, and he meant to have his own way. 

He followed Allegra into the drawing room, a room full 
of light and sunshine, which had been beautified and made 
homelike by the addition of a few Japaneseries and a little 
old Italian furniture which Martin Disney had picked up at 
a bric-a-brac shop in the Via Vittorio Emanuelo. There 
were flowers everywhere, in the bright Italian pottery, with 
its varieties of form and coloring. To Hulbert’s fancy it 
was the prettiest room he had seen for an age. 

“You seem to have made yourself uncommonly comfort- 
able here,” he said, after cordial greetings, settling down 
into a bamboo chair near Isola’s little olive-wood table, 
with its litter of Tauchnitz novels and fancy work. “ It is 
a pleasant sensation for a rolling stone who has hardly ever 
known what home means to drop into such a nest as this. 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 263 

You will have too much of my company, I’m afraid. You’ll 
be shocked to hear that I have taken rooms at the Anglais, 
down there,” pointing down the valley, “ within a stone’s 
throw of you.” 

“ We are not shocked. We are very glad you will be 
near us,” said Isola, smiling at him. “ It has been a dull 
life for Allegra, I’m afraid.” 

“ Dull ! dull in this land of beauty ! ” cried Allegra. “I 
have never known a dull hour since I came here ; though, 
of course,” with a shy glance at her lover, “ I have naturally 
thought sometimes of absent friends, and wished tfyey were 
with me to revel in the loveliness of these woods and hills.” 

“ Well, one of your friends has come to you, one who 
would as gladly have come had you been in regions where 
the sun never shines, or where his chariot wheels scorch the 
torrid sands.” 

Captain Hulbert stayed with them all the evening, and 
planned a sail to Mentone for the following day, Isola 
again begging to be left out of their plans, as she had done 
at Fowey. 

“ You need feel no compunction about leaving me,” she 
said. “ I shall be perfectly happy in the woods with nurse 
and baby and my books.” 

They obeyed her, and the little excursion was arranged. 
They were to start soon after the early breakfast, carrying 
what their Italian butler called a pique-nique with them, 
in the shape of a well-provided luncheon-basket. Isola sat 
in the olive wood, watching the white sails moving slowly 
toward Bordighera. It was a peerless day, but with scarcely 
a puff of wind ; a day for dreaming on the water rather 
than for rapid progress. The yacht scarcely seemed to 
move as Isola watched her from the cushioned corner which 
Lottchen had arranged in an angle of the low stone wall, 
all among ferns and mosses, brown orchises, and blue vio- 


264 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


lets, an angle sheltered by a century-old olive, whose 
gnarled trunk sprawled along the ground, rugged and riven, 
but with another century’s life in it yet. Far down in the 
valley, below the old gateway, a company of cypresses rose 
dark against the blue of the sea, and Isola knew that just 
on that slope of the shore, where the cypresses grew tallest, 
the graves of English exiles were gathered. Many a fair 
hope, many a broken dream, many a disappointed ambition 
lay at rest under those dark spires, within the sound of that 
summer sea. 

This was one of many days which the young mother 
spent in the woods or in the garden with her baby for her 
companion, while Allegra and the colonel sailed east or 
west in the Vendetta . Her doctor would have liked her to 
go with them, but she seemed to have an absolute aversion 
to the sea, and he did not press the point. 

“ Nothing that she dislikes will do her any good,” he 
told Colonel Disney. “ There is no use in being persistent 
about anything. Fancies and whims stand for a good 
deal in such an illness as hers.” 

A week or two later the same kind doctor discovered 
that his patient was fast losing ground. Her strength had 
flagged considerably in a short time. He recommended 
change of scene. 

“ This quiet life suited her wonderfully well for the first 
month or so, but we are no longer making any headway. 
You had better try a gayer place — a little more life and 
movement.” 

Martin Disney was ready to obey. He and Allegra 
took counsel together, and then — in the lightest strain, one 
evening after dinner — they discussed the notion of a 
change. 

“ Shall we strike our tents, Isola ? Are you tired of 
San Remo ? ” 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


265 


“ No, Martin. I am tired of myself, sometimes — never 
of these olive woods and lemon groves. Sometimes the 
stillness and the silent beauty of the place make me feel 
unhappy, without knowing why ; but that is a kind of 
unhappiness no one can escape.” 

“ Is there any place in the world within tolerably easy 
reach of this that you would like to see, Isola ? ” asked her 
husband. 

“Yes, there is one city in the world that I have been 
longing to see ever since I began to have thoughts and 
wishes.” 

“ And that is ” 

“ Rome ! I should like to see Rome before I die, 
Martin ; if it were not too troublesome for you ” 

“Troublesome! My dearest, can anything be trouble- 
some to me if it can but give you pleasure. You shall see 
Rome — not once — but again and again, in the course of a 
long and happy life, I hope. I am nearly thirty years 
older than you ; but I count upon at least thirty years 
more upon this planet, before I blow out my candle and 
say ‘ Bon soir.' ” 

“ God grant that you may live to a good old age, Martin. 
The world is better for such a man as you.” 

“ The world would be no place for me without my wife,” 
he said. “ And so you would like to see Rome, Isa ? 
What has put that fancy into your head ? ” 

“ Oh, it is an old dream, as I said just now. And lately 
I have been talking to Father Rodwell, who knows Rome 
as well as if he were a Roman citizen, and he has made me 
more and more anxious to go there. If it would not be a 
great plague to you, Martin.” 

“ On the contrary, it would be a great pleasure. We 
will go to Rome, Isa, if your doctor approve. Allegra 
will like it, I know.” 


266 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


“Like it?” echoed Allegra, “ I shall simply be intoxi- 
cated with delight. I know the catalogues of all the 
picture-galleries by heart. I think I know every one of 
the seven hills as well as if I had walked upon them from 
my childhood. I have read so many descriptions of the 
place and its surroundings — so many raptures penned by 
people whom I have envied for nothing else than that. 
They have known Rome ; they have lived in Rome.” 

The whole business was easily settled. Captain Hulbert 
was the only person who regretted the change. He had 
been a month at San Remo, a month of summer idleness in 
February and March, a month of summer sails on an azure 
sea ; of mountain walks and rides, high up from stage to 
stage, until the region of lemon groves and olive woods 
gave place to the pines on the loftier hills. He had been 
able to spend all his days in Allegra’s society. 

There were no pictures, except in that one little gallery 
at Colla. There was nothing to distract her from her 
lover. In Rome there would be all the wonders of the 
most wonderful city in the world. It would be art first 
and love second. 

The doctor approved ; Father Rodwell wrote to an agent 
in Rome, and, after some negotiation, a suite of apartments 
was found on the high ground near the Trinita de’ Monte, 
which seemed to meet all the requirements of the case. 
The priest vouched for the honesty and good faith of the 
agent, and, on his responsibility, the rooms were taken for 
the month of April, with liberty to occupy them later if it 
were so desired. 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


267 


CHAPTER XXI. 

“ THE WOODS ARE ROUND US, HEAPED AND DIM.” 

It was their last day at San Remo. Everything had 
been packed for the journey, and the drawing room at 
Lauter Brunnen had a dreary look now that it was stripped 
of all those decorations and useful prettinesses with which 
Allegra had made it so gay and home-like. 

The morning was brilliant, and Martin, Allegra, and Cap- 
tain Hulbert set off at nine o’clock upon a long-deferred 
expedition to San Romolo. They would be home in good 
time for the eight o’clock dinner ; and Isola promised to 
amuse herself all day, and to be in good spirits to welcome 
them on their return. 

“ You have a duty to do for your sister,” she said, when 
her husband felt compunction at leaving her. “ Think of all. 
she has done for us, her devotion, her unselfishness. The 
least we can do is to help her to be happy with her lover ; 
and all the burden of that duty has fallen upon you. I 
think you ought to be called Colonel Gooseberry.” 

She looked a bright and happy creature as she stood 
on the mule-path in the olive wood, waving her hand 
to them as they went away — Allegra riding a donkey, the 
two men walking, one on each side of her bridle, and the 
driver striding on ahead, leading a riderless donkey which 
was to serve as an occasional help by and by, if either of the 
pedestrians wanted a lift. Her cheeks were flushed with 
walking, and her eyes were bright with a new gladness. 

She was full of a childish pleasure in the idea of their 
journey, and the realization of a dream which most of us 
have dreamt a long time before it assumed the shape of 
earthly things— the dream of Rome. 


268 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


Isola stood listening to their footsteps, as they passed the 
little painted shrine on the hill path. She heard them give 
the time of day to a party of peasant women, with empty 
baskets on their heads, going up to gather the last of the 
olives. Then she roamed about the wooded valley and the 
slope of a hill toward Colla for over an hour ; and then, 
growing suddenly tired, she crept home, in time to sit be- 
side her baby while he slept his placid noontide sleep. She 
bent over the little rosebud mouth and kissed, it, in a 
rapture of maternal love. 

“ So young to see Rome,” she murmured, “ and to think 
that those star-like eyes will see and take no heed ; to think 
that such a glorious vision will pass before him, and yet he 
will remember nothing.” 

The day was very long, something like one of those end- 
less days at Trelasco, when her husband was in Burmahand 
she had only the dog and the cat for her companions. She 
thought of those fond friends to-day with a regretful sigh — 
the sleepy Shah, so calm and undemonstrative in his attach- 
ment, but with a placid, purring delight in her society which 
seemed to mean a great deal ; the fox-terrier, so active and 
intense in his affection, demanding so much attention, in- 
truding himself upon her walks and reveries with such 
eager, not-to-be-denied devotion. She had no four-footed 
friends here ; and the want of them made an empty space 
in her life. 

In the afternoon the weather changed suddenly. The 
sky became overcast, the sea a leaden color ; and the mis- 
tral came whistling up the valley with a great rustling and 
shivering of the silver-green foliage and creaking of the old 
bent branches, like the withered arms of witch or sorceress. 
All the glory of the day was gone, and the white villas on 
the crest of the eastward hill stood out with a livid distinct- 
ness against the blackened sky. 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 269 

Isola wandered up the hill-path, past the little shrine 
where the way divided, the point at which she had seen her 
husband and his party vanish in the sunny morning. She 
felt a sudden sense of loneliness now the sun was gone ; a 
childish longing for the return of her friends, foj evening 
and lamplight, and the things that make for cheerfulness. 
She was cold and dull and out of spirits. She had left the 
house while the sun was shining, and she had come without 
shawl or wrap of any kind, and the mistral made her shiver. 
Yet she had no idea of hurrying home. The loneliness of 
the house had become oppressive before she left it ; and 
she knew there would be some hours to wait for the return 
of the excursionists. So she mounted the steep mule-path, 
slowly and painfully, till she had gone two-thirds of the way 
to Colla ; and then she sat down to rest on the low stone 
wall which enclosed a little garden in a break of the wood, 
from which point there was a far-stretching view seaward. 

She was very cold, but she was so tired as to be glad to 
rest at any hazard of after-suffering. Drowsy from sheer 
exhaustion, she leant her head against a great rugged olive, 
whose roots were mixed up with the wall, and fell fast 
asleep. She awoke, shivering, from a confused dream of 
sea and woods, Roman temples and ruined palaces. She 
had been wandering in one of those dream cities that have 
neither limit nor settled locality. It was here in the woods 
below Colla, and yet was half Rome and half Trelasco. 
There was a classic temple upon a hill that was like The 
Mount, and the day was bleak and dark and rainy, and she 
was walking on the footpath through Lord Lostwithiel’s 
park, with the storm-driven rain beating against her face, 
just as on that autumn evening when the owner of the soil 
had taken compassion upon her and had given her shelter. 
The dream had been curiously vivid — a dream which 
brought the past back as if it were the present, and blotted 


270 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


out all that had come afterward. She woke bewildered, 
forgetting that her husband had come back from India, and 
that she was in Italy ; thinking of herself as she had been 
that October evening when she and Lostwithiel met for the 
first time. . 

The sea was darker than when she fell asleep. There 
was the dull crimson of a stormy sunset yonder, behind the 
jutting promontory of Bordighera, while the sky above was 
barred with long black clouds, and the wind was howling 
across the great deep valley like an evil spirit tortured and 
imprisoned shrieking to his gods for release. Exactly 
opposite her, as she stood in the deep cleft of the hills, a 
solitary vessel was laboring under press of canvas toward 
the point upon whose dusky summit the chapel of the 
Madonna della Guardia gleamed whitely in the dying day. 
The vessel was a schooner yacht, of considerable tonnage, 
certainly larger than the Vendetta. 

Isola stood, still as marble, watching that laboring boat, 
the straining sails, the dark hull beaten by the stormy dash 
of the waves. She watched with wide open eyes, and 
parted lips, quivering as . with an over-mastering fear ; 
watched in momentary expectation of seeing those strain- 
ing sails dip for the last time, that laboring hull capsize and 
vanish betwixt black wave and white surf. She watched in 
motionless attention till the boat disappeared behind the 
shoulder of the hill ; and then, shivering, nervous, and 
altogether over-strung, she hurried homeward, feeling that 
she had stayed out much too long, and that she had caught 
a chill which might be the cause of new trouble. 

If those narrow mule-paths had been less familiar, she 
might have lost her way in the dusk ; but she had trodden 
them too often to be in any difficulty, and she reached the 
villa without loss of time, but not before the return of the 
picnic party. 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER . 


271 


Allegra and Captain Hulbert were at the gate watching 
for her. Colonel Disney had gone into the wood to look 
for her, and had naturally taken the wrong direction. 

“ O Isola ; how could you stop out so late, and on such a 
stormy evening ? ” remonstrated Allegra. 

“ I fell asleep before the storm came on.” 

“ Fell asleep — out of doors — and at sunset ! What 
dreadful imprudence.” 

“ I went out too late, I’m afraid ; but I was so tired of 
waiting for you. A kind of horror of the house and the 
silence came upon me — and I felt I must go out into the 
woods. I walked too far, and fell asleep from sheer fatigue ; 
and when I woke I saw a yacht fighting with the wind. 
I’m afraid she’ll go down.” 

“ What, you noticed her too ? ” exclaimed Hulbert. “ I 
didn’t think you cared enough about yachts to take notice of 
her. I was watching her as we came down the hill ; rather 
too much canvas ; but she’s right enough. She’s past 
Arma di Taggia by this time, I dare say. I’ll go and look 
for Disney, and tell him you’re safe and sound. Perhaps 
I shall miss him in the wood. It’s like a Midsummer 
Night’s Dream, isn’t it, Allegra?” he said, laughing, as he 
went out of the gate. 

“ If it were only midsummer, I shouldn’t care,” answered 
his sweetheart, with her arm round Isola, who stood beside 
her, pale and shivering. “ Come in, dear, and let me make 
you warm, if I can.” 

“ If they should all go down in the darkness,” said Isola, 
in a low, dreamy voice. “ T.he boat looked as if it might 
be wrecked at any moment.” 

Allegra employed all her arts as a sick-nurse in the en- 
deavor to ward off any ev.il consequence from that impru- 
dent slumber in the chill hour of sunset ; but her cares 
were unavailing. Isola was restless and feverish all night ; 


272 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


yet she insisted on getting up at her usual hour next morn- 
ing, and declared herself quite capable of the journey to 
Genoa. Allegra and her brother, however, insisted on her 
resting for a day or two. So the departure was postponed, 
and the doctor sent for. He advised at least three days’ 
rest, with careful nursing ; and he reproved his patient 
severely for her imprudence in exposing herself to the 
evening air. 

Captain Hulbert appeared at tea time, just returned 
from a railway journey to Allassio. 

“ I’ve a surprise for you, Mrs. Disney,” he said, seating 
himself by the sofa where Isola was lying, surrounded by 
invalid luxuries, books, lemonade, fan, and eau de Cologne 
flask; her feet covered with a silken rug. 

“ A surprise ! ” she echoed faintly, as if life held no 
surprises for her. “What can that be ? ” 

“You remember the yacht you saw last night ?” 

“Yes,” she .cried, roused in an instant, and clasping her 
hands excitedly. “ Did she go down ? ” 

“ Not the least little bit. She is safe and sound at Allas- 
sio. She is called the Eurydice , she hails from Syracuse, 
and my brother is on board her. He wired to me this 
morning to go over and see him. I’m very glad I went, for 
he is off to Corfu to-morrow. The Flying Dutchman isn’t 
in it with him.” 

There was a curious silence. Martin Disney was sitting 
on the other side of his wife’s sofa, where he had been 
reading selected bits of the Times , such portions of the 
news of men and nations as he fancied might interest her. 
Allegra was busy with a piece of delicate needlework, and 
did not immediately reply ; but it was she who was first to 
speak. 

“ How frightened you would have been yesterday even- 
ing had you known who was on board the boat,” she said 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


273 


“ I don’t know about being frightened, but he was cer- 
tainly carrying too much canvas. I told him so this morn- 

• _ f f 

ing. 

“ What did he say ? ” 

“Laughed at me. ‘You sailors never believe that a 
landsman can sail a ship,’ he said. I wanted to talk to his 
sailing master, but he told me he was his own sailing-mas- 
ter. If his ship was doomed to go down he meant to be at 
the helm himself.” 

“ That sounds as if he were foolhardy,” said Allegra. 

“ I told him I did not like the rig of his boat, nor the 
name of his boat ; and I reminded him how I saw the Eury - 
dice off Portland with all her canvas spread the day she 
went down. I was with the governor of the prison, a naval 
man who had been commander on my first ship, and we 
stood side by side on the cliff, and watched her as she went 
by. ‘ If this wind gets much stronger that ship will go 
down,’ said my old captain, ‘unless they take in some of 
their canvas.’ And a few hours later those poor fellows 
had all gone to the bottom. I asked Lostwithiel why he 
called his boat the Eurydice. ‘ Fancy,’ he said ; he had a 
fancy for the name. ‘ I’ve never forgotten the old lines we 
used to hammer out when we were boys,’ he said — ‘ “ Ah, 
miseram, Eurydicen, anima fugiente vocabat ; Eurydicen 
toto referebant flumine ripae.” ’ ” 

“ I don’t think the name matters, if she is a good boat,” 
said Allegra, with her calm common-sense. 

“Well, she is, and she isn’t. She is a finer boat than the 
Vendetta ; but I’d sooner handle the Vendetta in a storm. 
There are points about his new boat that I don’t quite like. 
However, he had her built by one of the finest builders on 
the Clyde, and it will be hard if she goes wrong. He has 
given me the Vendetta as a wedding-present — in advance of 
the event — on condition that I sink her when I’m tired of 


274 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


her ; and he said he hoped she’d be luckier to me than she 
has been to him.” 

Martin Disney sat silent by his wife’s sofa. He could 
never hear Lord Lostwithiel’s name without a touch of 
pain. His only objection to Hulbert as a brother-in-law 
was the thought that the two men were of the same race — 
that he must needs hear the hated name from time to time ; 
and yet he believed his wife’s avowal that she was pure and 
true. His hatred of the name came only from the recollec- 
tion that she had been slandered by a man whom he 
despised. He looked at the wasted profile on the satin 
pillow, so wan, so transparent in its waxen pallor, the heavy 
eyelid drooping languidly, the faintly colored lips drawn as 
if with pain — a broken lily. Was this the kind of woman to 
be suspected of evil — this fair and fragile creature, in whom 
the spiritual so predominated over the sensual ? He hated 
himself for having been for a moment influenced by that 
underbred scoundrel at Glenaveril, for having been base 
enough to doubt his wife’s purity. 

He had pained and liumilated her, and now the stamp of 
death was on the face he adored, and before him lay the 
prospect of a life’s remorse. 

They left San Remo three days afterward, Isola being 
pronounced able to bear the journey, though her cough had 
been considerably increased by that imprudent slumber in 
the wood. She was anxious to go ; and doctor and hus- 
band gave way to her eagerness for new scenes. 

“ I am so tired of this place,” she said piteously. “ It is 
lovely ; but it is a loveliness that makes me melancholy. 
I want to be in a great city where there are lots of people 
moving about. I have never lived in a city, but always in 
quiet places — beautiful, very beautiful, but so still — so 
still — so full of one’s self and one’s own thoughts.” 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


275 


CHAPTER XXII. 

ECCO ROMA. 

The agent had proved himself worthy of trust, and had 
chosen the lodging for Colonel Disney’s family with taste 
and discretion. It was a first floor over a jeweler’s shop 
in a short street behind the Piazza di Spagna, and under 
the Pincian Gardens. There were not too many stairs for 
Isola to ascend when she came in from her drive or walk. 
The gardens were close at hand, and all around there were 
trees and flowers, and an atmosphere of verdure and retire- 
ment in the midst of the great cosmopolitan city. 

It was dusk when the train came into the terminus ; and 
Isola was weary and exhausted after the long hot journey 
from Pisa, the glare of the sun, and the suffocating clouds 
of dust, and the beautiful monotony of blue sea and sandy 
plains, long level wastes, where nothing grew but brushwood 
and osier, and stretches of marshy ground, with water pools 
shining here and there, like burnished steel, and distant 
islets dimly seen athwart a cloud of heat. Then evening 
closed in ; and it was through a gray and formless world 
that they approached the city whose very name thrilled 
her. 

The railway station was very much like all the other 
great termini ; like Milan, like Genoa. There was the 
close rank of omnibuses. There were the same blue 
blouses, and civil, eager porters, piling up the innumerable 
packages of the Italian traveler, loading themselves like so 
many human beasts of burden, and with no apparent limit 
to their capacity for carrying things. Two flys were loaded 
with miscellaneous luggage, and then Isola was handed to 
her place in another, with Allegra by her side; and, through 


27 6 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


the narrow streets of tall houses, under the dim strip of 
soft April night, she drove through the city of heroes and 
martyrs, saints and apostles, wicked emperors and holy 
women, the city of historical contrasts, of darkness and 
light, refinement and barbarism, of all things most unlike 
each other, from Nero to Paul, from Domitian to Gregory 
the Great. 

The glory and the beauty of Rome only began to dawn 
upon her next morning, in the vivid sunshine, when she 
climbed the steps of the Trinita de’ Monte; and then, with 
Allegra’s arm to lean upon, went slowly upward, and again 
upward to the topmost terrace on the Pincian Hill, and 
stood leaning on the marble balustrade, and gazing across 
the city that lay at her feet, over palace and steeple, pinna- 
cle and tower, to the rugged grandeur of Hadrian’s Tomb, 
and to that great dome, whose vastness makes all things 
seem puny and insignificant. This was her first view of 
the world’s greatest church. 

The air was clear and cool upon this height, although the 
city below showed dimly through a hazy veil of almost 
tropical heat. Everywhere there was the odor of summer 
flowers, the overpowering sweetness of lilies of the valley, 
and great branches of lilac, white and purple, brimming 
over in the baskets of the flower-sellers. 

On such a morning as this one could understand how the 
Romans came to call April the joyous month, and to dedi- 
cate this season of sunshine and flowers to the Goddess 
of Beauty and Love. 

Isola’s face lighted up with a new gladness, a look of 
perfect absorption and self-forgetfulness, as she leaned 
upon the balustrade, and gazed across that vast panorama; 
gazed and wondered, with eyes that seemed to grow larger 
in their delight. 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 277 

“ And is this really Rome ? ” she murmured softly. 

“Yes, this is Rome/' cried Allegra. “Isn’t it lovely? 
Isn’t it all you ever dreamt of or hoped for ? And yet 
people have so maligned it — called it feverish, stuffy, dis- 
appointing, dirty ! Why, the air is ether — inspiring, health- 
giving ! April in Rome is as fresh as April in an English 
forest ; only it is April with the warmth and flowers of 
June. I feel sure you' will grow ever so much stronger 
after one little week in Rome.” 

“ Yes, I know I shall be better here. I feel better 
already,” said Isola, with a kind of feverish hopefulness. 
“ It was so good of Martin to bring me. San Remo is 
always lovely, and I shall love it to the end of my life, 
because it was my first home in Italy; but I was beginning to 
be a little tired, not of the olive woods and the sea, but of 
the people we met, and the sameness of life. One day was 
so like another.” 

“ It was monotonous, of course,” agreed Allegra ; “ and, 
being a little out of health, you would be bored by mono- 
tony sooner than Martin or I. It was such a pity you did 
not like the yacht. That made such a change for us. The 
very olive woods and the mountain villages seem new when 
one sees them from the water. I was never tired of look- 
ing at the hills between San Remo and Bordighera, or the 
promontory of Monaco, with its cathedral towers. It was a 
pleasure lost to you, dear ; but it could not be helped, I 
suppose. Yet, once upon a time, you used to be so fond 
of the sea, when you and I went in our row-boat, tempting 
danger round by Neptune Point.” 

“I may have been stronger then,” Isola faltered. 

“ Oh, forgive me, darling. What an inconsiderate wretch 
I am ! But Rome will give you back your lost strength ; 
and we shall round Neptune Point again, and feel the salt 
spray dashing over our heads as we go out into the great 


278 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


fierce Atlantic. I confess that sometimes, when that divine 
Mediterranean, which we are never tired of worshiping, 
has been lying in the sunshine like one vast floor of lapis 
lazuli , I have longed for something rougher and wilder — 
for such a sea as you and I have watched from the Rash- 
leigh Mausoleum.” 

Colonel Disney and his wife and sister went about in a 
very leisurely way in their explorations. In the first place, 
he was very anxious to avoid anything approaching fatigue 
for his wife ; and in the second place, it was only the begin- 
ning of April, and they were to be in Rome for at least a 
month; there was, therefore, no need for rushing hither and 
thither at the tourist pace, with guide-books in their hands, 
and anxious, heated countenances, perspiring through the 
streets, and getting deadly chills in the churches. Allegra’s 
first desire was naturally to see the picture galleries; and to 
these she went for the most part alone, leaving Isola and 
her husband free to wander about as they pleased, upon a 
friendly equality of ignorance, knowing very little more 
than Childe Harold and Murray could teach them. Isola’s 
Rome was Byron's Rome. 

There was one spot she loved better than any other in 
the city of mighty memories. It was not hallowed by the 
blood of saint or hero, sage or martyr. It had no classical 
associations. He whose heart lay buried there under the 
shadow of the tribune’s mighty monument, perished in the 
pride of manhood, in the freshness and glory of life ; and 
that heart — so warm and generous to his fellow-men — had 
hardened itself against the God of saint and martyr, the 
God of Peter and Paul, Lawrence and Gregory, Benedict 
and Augustine. Yet for Isola there was no grave in Rome 
so fraught with spiritual thoughts as Shelley’s grave, no 
sweeter memory associated with the eternal city than the 
memory of his wanderings and meditations amid the ruined 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


279 


walls of the Baths of Caracalla, where his young genius 
drank in the poetry of the long past, and fed upon the 
story of the antique dead. 

She came to Shelley’s grave as often as she could steal 
away from the anxious companions of her drives and 
walks. 

“ I like to be alone now and then,” she told her husband. 
“ It rests me to sit by myself for an hour or two in this 
lonely place.” 

There was a coachman in the Piazza who was in the habit 
of driving Colonel Disney’s family — an elderly man, sober, 
steady and attentive, with intelligence that made him almost 
as good as a guide. He was on the watch for his English 
clients every morning. They had but to appear on the 
Piazza, and he was in attendance, ready to take them to the 
utmost limit of a day’s journey, if they liked. Were they 
in doubt where to go, he was always prompt with sugges- 
tions. 

He would drive Isola to the door of the English Cemetery, 
leave her there, and return at her bidding to drive her home 
again. Disney knew she was safe when this veteran had 
her in charge. The man was well known in the Piazza, and 
of established character for honesty. She took a book or 
two in her light basket, buying a handful of flowers here 
and there from the women and children as she went along, 
till the books were hidden under roses and lilac. The cus- 
todian of the cemetery knew her, and admitted her without 
a word. He had watched her furtively once or twice, to 
see that she neither gathered the flowers nor tried to scratch 
her name upon the tombs. He had seen her sitting quietly 
by the slab which records Shelley’s death— and the death of 
that faithful friend who was laid beside him, sixty years 
afterward. Sixty years of loving, regretful memory, and 
then union in the dust. Shall there not be a later and a 


2So 


ALL ALONG THE RIVET. 


better meeting, when those two shall see each other’s faces 
and hear each other’s voices again, in a world where old 
things shall be made new, where youth and its wild fresh- 
ness shall come back again, and Trelawney shall be as 
young in thought and feeling as Shelley ? 

The English burial place was a garden of fairest flowers 
at this season, a paradise of roses and clematis, azalias and 
camelias, and much more beautiful for its wilder growth of 
trailing foliage and untended shrubs, the pale cold blue of 
the periwinkle that carpeted slope and bank, and for the 
background of old gray wall, severe in its antique magnifi- 
cence, a cyclopean rampart, relic of time immemorial, 
clothed and beautiful with weed and floweret that grew in 
every cleft and cranny. 

Here, in a sheltered angle to the left of the poet’s grave, 
Isola could sit unobserved, even when the custodian brought 
a party of tourists to see the hallowed spot, which occurred 
now and then while she sat there. The tourists for the 
most part stared foolishly, made some sentimental remark 
if they were women ; or, if they were men, betrayed a hope- 
less ignorance of the poet’s history, and not unfrequently 
confounded him with Keats. Isola sat half hidden in her 
leafy corner, where the ivy and the acanthus hung from 
great gray buttresses against which she leant, languid, half 
dreaming, with two books on her lap. 

One was her Shelley — her much read Shelley — a shabb)% 
cloth-bound volume, bought in her girlhood at the book- 
seller’s in the Place Duguesclin, where . English books 
could be got by special order, and at special prices. The 
other was an Italian Testament, which her husband had 
bought her at San Remo, and in which she had read with 
extreme diligence and with increasing fervor as her soul 
became more deeply moved by Father Rodwell’s sermons. 
It was not that she had ever been one of those advanced 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


281 


thinkers who will accept no creed which does not square 
with their own little theories and fit into their own narrow 
circle of possibilities. She had never doubted the creed 
she had been taught in her childhood ; but she had thought 
very little about serious things since she was a young girl, 
preparing for her confirmation, touched with girlish enthus- 
iasm, and very much in earnest. In these fair spring days, 
and in this city of many memories, all young thoughts had 
re-awakened in her mind. She pored over the familiar 
Gospel stories, and again, as in the first freshness of her 
girlhood, she saw the sacred figure of the Redeemer and 
Teacher in all the vivid light and color of a reality, close 
at hand. Faith stretched across the abyss of time, and 
brought the old world of the Gospel story close to her ; the 
closer because she was in Rome, not far from that church 
which enshrines the print of the Divine footstep, when he 
who was God and Man appeared to his disciple, to fore- 
shadow approaching martyrdom, to inspire the fortitude of 
the martyr. Yes, although the Saviour’s earthly feet never 
entered the city, every hill and every valley within and 
without those crumbling walls has interwoven itself so 
closely with the story of his life — through the work of his 
saints and martyrs — that it is nowise strange if the scenes 
and images of the sacred story seem nearer and more vivid 
in Rome than in any other place on earth, not excepting 
Jerusalem. It was from Rome, not from Jerusalem, that the 
Cross went out to the uttermost ends of the world. It is 
the earth of the Colosseum and the Borgo that is steeped 
in the blood of those who have died for Christ. It was 
Rome that ruled the world through the long night of bar- 
barism and feudal power, by the invincible force of that one 
holy name. 

It might seem strange that Isola should turn from the 
the story of the Evangelists to the works of a poet whose 


282 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


human sympathies were so wrung by the evil that has been 
wrought in the name of the Cross, that he was blind to the 
infinitely greater good which Christianity has accomplished 
for mankind. Shelley saw the blood of the martyrs, not as 
a sublime testimony to the Godlike power of Faith, not as a 
sacrifice rich in after fruits, sad seed of a joyous harvest — 
but as the brutal outcome of man’s cruelty, using any 
name, Christ or Buddha, Mohammed or Brahma — as the 
badge of tyranny, the sanction to torture and to slay. 

Shelley’s melancholy fate seemed brought nearer to her 
now that she sat beside his grave, in the summer stillness, 
and in the shadow of the old Aurelian wall. It was only 
his heart which was lying there ; that imperishable heart 
which Trelawney’s hand snatched from the flame of the 
Greek pyre, from the smoke of pine logs and frankincense, 
wine and oil. Sixty years had passed before that hand 
lay cold in the grave beside the buried heart of the poet ; 
sixty years of severance and fond, faithful memory before 
death brought reunion 

What a beautiful spirit this, which was so early quenched 
by the crudest stroke of Fate — a light such as seldom 
shone out of mortal clay, a spirit of fire and brightness, in- 
tangible, untamable, not to be shut within common limits, 
nor iudged by common laws. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

“ SEEK SHELTER IN THE SHADOW OF THE TOMB.” 

Of the people who came to look upon the grave, some 
to lay a tributary flower upon the stone, and some to pluck 
a leaf or two of acanthus or violet, all hitherto had been 
strangers to Isola, had gone away without seeing her, or 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


283 


had glanced indifferently, as at some one unfortunate with 
a sketching-block, spoiling paper in the pursuit of the 
unattainable. There were so many amateur artists sitting 
about in the outskirts of the city, that such a figure in 
a romantic spot challenged nobody’s attention. So far 
people had come and gone, and had taken no notice ; but 
one afternoon a figure in a long black cassock came sud- 
denly between her and the golden light, and Isola looked 
up with a cry of surprise on recognizing Father Rodwell. 

“ You did not expect to see me here,” he said, holding 
out his hand. 

She had risen from her seat on the low grassy bank ; and 
she gave him her hand, half in pleasure, half in a nervous 
apprehension which his keen eye was quick to perceive. 
His life had been spent in dealings with the souls of men 
and women, and he had learned to read those living pages 
as easily as he read Plato or Spinosa. 

“ No,” she said. “ I had no idea you were in Rome. 
You told us you were going back to London.” 

“ I meant to go back to London and hard work ; but my 
doctor insisted upon my prolonging my holiday for a few 
weeks, so I came here instead. Rome always draws me, 
and is always new. Rome gives me fresh life aud fresh 
power when my heart and brain have been feeling be- 
numbed and dead. I am glad they brought you here, Mrs. 
Disney. You were looking languid and ill when you left 
San Remo. I hope Rome has revivified you.” 

He looked at her earnestly. Her face had been in 
shadow until now ; but, as she moved into the sunlight, he 
saw that the lines had sharpened in the pale, wan face, and 
that there was the stamp of wasting disease in the hollow 
cheeks, and in the almost bloodless lips. As he looked at 
her in friendliest commiseration, those pathetic gray eyes, 
whose expression had baffled his power of interpretation 


284 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


hitherto, filled suddenly with tears ; and in the next 
moment she clasped her hands before her face in an agony 
of grief. 

The Italian Testament which she had been reading when 
he approached dropped at her feet ; and, stooping to pick it 
up, Father Rodwell saw that it was open at the fourth 
chapter of St. John, the story of the woman of Samaria, 
she with whom Christ talked at the well. A leaf from 
Shelley’s grave lay upon the book, as if to mark where she 
had been reading, and Father Rodwell’s quick glance saw 
that the page was blotted with tears. 

“ My dear Mrs. Disney,” he said gently, “ is there 
anything wrong at home ? Your husband, your boy are 
well, I hope?” 

“ Yes, thank God, they are both well. God has been 
very good to me. He might have taken those I love. He 
has been very merciful.” 

“ He is merciful to all his creatures ; though there are 
times when his dealings with us seem very hard. But we 
know that we look through a glass, darkly ; and it needs the 
light of faith to pierce the shadows that close us round. 
Oh, Mrs. Disney, you can’t think how difficult a priest’s 
office is sometimes when he has to reconcile the afflicted 
with the Providence that has seen fit to lay some heavy 
burden on them. They cannot understand ; they cannot 
say it is well. They cannot kiss the rod. But, as you say, 
God has been very good to you. Your lines have been set 
in pleasant places. You are hedged round and sheltered 
by love. I never saw greater affection in husband for wife 
than I have seen in your husband. I never saw sister 
more devoted to sister than your sister-in-law is to you.” 

She had sunk again into a sitting position on the low 
bank at the foot of the wall. Her face was still hidden, 
and her sobs came faster as he spoke to her. 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


285 


“ Why should you grieve at the thought of their love. Is 
it because it may please God to take you from them in the 
morning of your life ? If it is that dread which agitates 
you I entreat you to put it aside. There is nothing in 
your case that forbids hope, and hope will do much to help 
your recovery. You should tell yourself how valuable 
your life is to those who love you. The thought of their 
affection should give you courage to struggle against 
apathy and languor. Believe me, invalids have their con- 
dition a great deal more in their power than they are 
inclined to believe. So much can be overcome where the 
spirit is strong and brave, where faith and hope fight 
against bodily weakness. You ought not to be sitting alone 
here in this saddening spot. It is lovely, but with the 
beauty of death. You ought to be driving out to Frascati 
or to Tivoli with your husband. You ought to be watching 
the carriages in the Pincian Gardens, or amusing yourself 
in one of the picture galleries.* 

“ I had rather be alone,” she said, wiping away her tears, 
and in some degree recovering her self-possession. 

“ That is a morbid fancy, and one that hinders your 
recovery.” 

“ I have no wish to recover. I only want to die.” 

“ My dear Mrs. Disney, it is your duty to fight against 
these melancholy moods. Can you be indifferent to your 
husband’s feelings ? Have you not the mother’s natural 
desire to watch over your child’s early years, to see him 
reach manhood.” 

“ No, no, no,” she cried passionately. “ I have had 
enough of life. They are dear to me, very dear. No wife 
ever loved and honored her husband more than I love and 
honor mine — but it is all over, it is past and ended. I am 
more than resigned to death — I am thankful that God has 
called me away.” 


286 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


He watched her closely as she spoke, watched her with 
his hand upon hers, which was cold as ice. He had heard 
such words before from the early doomed, but they had 
been accompanied by religious exaltation ; they had been 
the outpouring of a faith that saw the gates of heaven 
opened and the Son of Man sitting in glory — of a love that 
longed to be with God. Here there was no sign of hope 
or exaltation. There were only the tokens of despair. 

He remembered how agitated he had seen her many times 
in the little church at San Remo, and how, although hang- 
ing eagerly upon his preaching, she had persistently avoided 
anything like serious conversation with him upon the few 
occasions when he had found himself alone with her. 

He had her Testament still in his hand ; and, looking down 
at the tear-stained page, it seemed to him that there lay the 
clew to her melancholy. 

“You have been reading the story of the woman of 
Samaria,” he said. 

“ Yes.” 

“ And you have read that other story of her who knelt in 
the dust at her Saviour’s feet, and to whom he said, Neither 
do I condemn thee.’ ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Is there anything in either of those stories to sadden 
you more than the thought of sin and sorrow saddens all 
of us ? ” 

She looked at him shrinkingly, pale as death, as if he had 
a dagger in his hand ready to strike her. 

“ No, I don’t suppose there is anything that goes home 
to my heart any more than to other hearts,” she said, after 
a pause, trying to speak carelessly. “ We are all sinners. 
The Gospel teaches us that in every line ! We are none of 
us altogether worthy — not even my husband, I suppose, 
although to me he seems a perfect Christian.” 


ALL ALONG THE El FEE. 


287 


“ I can believe that he is a Christian, Mrs. Disney, and a 
man of strong convictions. If he had wronged anybody, 
I do not think he would rest till he had atoned for that 
wrong.” 

“ I am sure he would not. He would do his uttermost 
to atone. And so would I — although I do not pretend to 
be half so good a Christian as he is. I would do all in my 
power to atone for any wrong I had done to one I loved.” 

“ As you love your husband, for instance.” 

“ Yes, as I love him. He is first in the world for me. 
Dear as my child is, Martin must always be first.” 

“ And you would not for the world do him any wrong?” 
pursued the priest, more and more earnest as he went on, 
pale with emotion, his whole power of observation concen- 
trated upon the whitening face and lowered eyelids of the 
woman sitting at his feet. 

“ Not for the world, not for my life,” she said, with her 
hands tightly clasped, her eyes still hidden under the heavy 
lids, tearless now — and with dry and quivering lips, from 
which the words came with a dull and soulless sound. “ I 
would die to save him an hour’s pain. I would fling away 
this wretched life rather than grieve him for a moment.” 

“ Poor soul,” murmured the priest, pitying that depth of 
self-abasement which he understood so well, under whatso- 
ever guise she might hide her contrition. “ Poor soul, you 
talk too lightly of that great mystery which we should all 
face in a spirit of deep humility. Do you feel that you can 
contemplate that passage through death to a new life with- 
out fear of the issue ? Have you no reckoning to make 
with the God who pardons repentant sinners? Do you 
stand before him with a clear conscience — having kept 
nothing back — cherished no hidden sin ? ” 

“ No one can be without sin in his sight. Do you sup- 
pose that I am sinless, or that I have ever believed myself 


288 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER . 


sinless ? I know how weak and poor a thing I am — a worm 
in the sight of him who rules the universe. But if — if he 
cares for such as I, he knows that I am sorry for every 
sinful thought and every sinful act of my life.” 

She spoke in short sentences, each phrase broken by a 
stifled sob. She felt as if he were tearing out her heart*, 
this man who had been heretofore so kindly and indulgent 
in his speech and manner that he seemed to make religion 
an easy thing, a garment as loose and expansive as phil- 
osophy itself. And now, all at once, he appeared before 
her as a judge, searching out her heart, cruel, inflexible, 
weighing her in the balance, and finding her wanting. 

“ If I am sorry,” she murmured between her sobs, “ what 
more can God or man require of me ?” 

“ Nothing, if your sorrow is that true sorrow which means 
repentance, and goes hand in hand with atonement. For- 
give me, my dear friend, for presuming to speak unre- 
servedly to you. If I try to find out the nature of your 
wound it is only that I may help you to heal it. Ever since 
I have known you I have seen the tokens of a wounded 
heart, a bruised and broken spirit. I saw you surrounded 
with all the blessings that make woman’s lot happy. It was 
hardly possible to conceive fairer surroundings and truer 
friends. Can you wonder, then, if my compassionate 
interest was awakened by the indications of a deep-rooted 
sorrow for which there was no apparent cause ? I saw your 
emotion in church, saw how quickly your heart and mind 
responded to the appeal of religion — saw in you a soul 
attuned to heavenly things, and day by day my interest in 
you and yours grew stronger. The hope of seeing you 
again, of helping you to bear your secret burden, of ulti- 
mately lightening it, was one of my reasons for coming to 
Rome. I felt somehow that you and I had not met in 
vain — that my power to move you was not without a mean- 


ALL ALONG TLIE RIVER . 289 

ing in both our lives ; that if, as I thought, you needed 
spiritual help and comfort, it was my vocation to help and 
comfort you. And so I came to Rome, and so I found out 
where you spent your quiet hours, and so I have followed 
you here this afternoon. Tell me, Mrs. Disney, did I pre- 
sume too much? Was it the preacher’s vanity or the 
priest’s intuition that spoke?” 

“It was intuition,” she said. “You saw that I had 
sinned. None but a sinner could shed such tears — could 
so feel the terror of God’s wrath.” 

“ It is of his love I want you to think : of his immeasur- 
able love and pity ; of his Son’s divine compassion. If 
you have any special need of his pardon, if there is any 
sinful secret locked in your heart, do not let the golden 
hours go by — the time meet for repentance.” 

“ I have repented,” she cried piteously. “ My life has 
been one long repentance ever since my sin.” 

“ And your husband — he who so fondly loves you — he 
knows all, and has forgiven all ? ” 

“ Knows ! ” The word broke from her lips almost in a 
shriek of horror. “ He knows nothing — he must never 
know. He would despise me, leave me to die alone, while 
he went far away from me, to the very end of the world. 
He would take his son with him. I should be left alone — 
alone to face death — the most desolate creature God ever 
looked upon. Oh, Father Rodwell, why have you wrung 
my secret from me ? ” she cried, groveling on her knees in 
the long grass beside him, clinging to his hand as he bent 
over her, gravely compassionate, deeply moved by her dis- 
tress. “ How cruel to question — to torture me — how cruel 
to use your power of reading guilty hearts ! You will tell 
my husband, who so loves and trusts me. You will tell him 
what a guilty wretch I am.” 

“Tell him, Mrs. Disney! Can you forget that I am a 


290 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


priest — in whose heart the sinner’s secret is buried as in a 
grave ? Do you think I have never talked with the tempted 
and the sorrowing before to-day ? Do you think that grief 
such as yours can be an unknown experience to a man who 
has worked in a crowded London parish for nearly twenty 
years ? I wanted to know the worst, so that I might be 
able to advise and to console you. If I have questioned 
you to-day, it has been as a priest has the right to question ; 
and this place where you and I have met to-day is, in my 
sight, as sacred as the confessional. You need have no 
fear that I shall tell your husband the secret of your sorrow. 
All I will do is to help you to find strength to tell him 
yourself.” 

“ Oh, no, no, no ! ” she cried piteously. “ Never ! never ! 
I can die, I am prepared to die ; but I can never tell him — 
I cannot, I dare not.” 

“ Yet you could dare to die with a lie upon your lips — 
you who are ready to meet your Judge — you whose whole 
life is a lie — you who have cheated and betrayed the best 
of men. Oh, Mrs. Disney, reflect what this thing is which 
you are doing ; reflect what kind of sin it is you are com- 
mitting. If, as your own sorrowing words acknowledge, 
you have been a false wife — a false wife to the best 
and truest of husbands, can you dare to act out that 
falsehood to the last, to die with that guilty secret locked 
in your heart, from him who has a right to know — and 
who alone upon earth has a right to pardon ? ” 

“ Oh, how cruel you are,” she said, lifting up her stream- 
ing eyes to his earnest, inflexible face. “Is it a Christian’s 
part to be so cruel, to break the bruised reed, to crush any- 
thing so weak and wretched as I am ? Is not repentance 
enough ? I have spent long nights in penitence and tears, 
long days in dull aching remorse. I would have given all 
my future life to atone for one dreadful hour — one unpre- 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


291 


meditated yielding to temptation. I have given my life — 
for my secret has killed me. What more can man or God 
demand of me ? What more can I do to win forgiveness ? ” 

“ Only this — tell your husband the truth — however pain- 
ful, however humiliating the confession. That will be your 
best atonement. That is the sacrifice which will help to 
reconcile you with your God. You cannot hope for God’s 
love and pardon hereafter, if you live and die as a hypocrite 
here. God’s saints were some of them steeped in the 
darkness of guilt before they became the children of light ; 
but there was not one of them who shrank from the con- 
fession of his sins.” 

“You are a man,” sobbed Isola. “You do not know 
what it is for a woman to confess that she is unworthy of 
her husband’s love. You do not know. It is not possible 
for a man to know the meaning of shame.” 

“ You are wrong there,” he said, gently lifting her from 
the ground, and placing her beside him on the bank. 
“ What chastity is to a woman, honor is to a man. Men 
have had to stand up before their fellow-men and acknow- 
ledge their violation of man’s code of honor ; knowing that 
such acknowledgment made them dirt, and very dirt, in 
the sight of honorable men. You, as a woman, know not 
how deep man’s scorn cuts a man who has sinned against 
the law which governs gentlemen. A woman thinks there 
is no such sting as the sting of her shame. Men know bet- 
ter. Yes, I know that it will be most bitter, more bitter 
than death — for you to tell Colonel Disney that you are 
not what you have seemed to him ; but, apart from all con- 
siderations of duty, do not his love and devotion deserve 
the sacrifice of self-love on your part ? Can you bear 
yourself to the last, as a virtuous wife — enjoying his respect 
— knowing that it is undeserved ” 

“ I will tell him — at the last,” she faltered. “ In that 


292 


ALL ALONG TBE X ELVER. 


parting hour I shall not shrink from telling him all — how I 
sinned against him — almost unawares — drifting half uncon- 
sciously into a fatal entanglement — and then — and then — 
against my will — in my weakness and helplessness — alone in 
the power of the man I loved — betrayed into sin. O God ! 
why do you make me remember?” she cried wildly, turn- 
ing upon the priest in passionate reproachfulness. “ For 
years I have been trying to forget — trying to blank out the 
past — praying, praying, praying that my humble, tearful 
love for my husband and my child might cancel those 
hours of sin. And you come to me, and question me, and, 
on pretense of saving my soul, you force me to look back 
upon that bygone horror — to live again through that time of 
madness — the destruction of my life. Cruel, cruel, cruel ! ” 
“ Forgive me,” said Father Rodwell, very gently, seeing 
that she was struggling with hj^steria. “ I have been too 
hard, perhaps, too eager to convince you of the right ! 
There are some men, even of my sacred calling, who would 
judge your case otherwise — who would say the husband is 
happy in his ignorance ; the wife has repented of her sin. 
Non quieta movere. But it is not in my nature to choose 
the easy pathways ; and it may be that I am too severe a 
teacher. We will not talk any more about serious things 
to-day. Only believe that I am your friend — your sincere 
and devoted friend. If I have spoken hard things, be 
assured I would have spoken in the same spirit had you 
been my own sister. Let us say no more yet a while — and 
perhaps when you have thought over our interview to-day 
you will come to see things almost as I see them, and of 
your own accord you will do that which I, as the minister 
of Christ’s Gospel, would urge you to do. I won’t press 
the matter. I will leave your own heart and conscience to 
plead with you. And now may I walk home with you, 
before the beauty of the afternoon begins to fade ? ” 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


293 


“ The vetturino will be waiting for me at the gate,” Isola 
answered, with a dull, dead voice, rising languidly, and ad- 
justing the loosened hair about her forehead with tremulous 
fingers. 

She had thrown off her hat a little while before, and now 
she took it up, and straightened the loops of ribbo» with a 
nervous touch here and there, and then put the hat on 
again, and arranged the gossamer veil, which she hoped 
might hide her swollen eyelids and tear-stained cheeks. 

“If Martin should come to meet me, what will he 
think ?” she said piteously. 

“ Let me go with you, and I may be able to distract his 
attention, if you don’t want him to see that you have been 
crying.” 

“ No, no. He must not see. He would wonder, and 
question me, and guess, perhaps, as you did just now. 
How was it you knew ; what made you guess ? ” she asked, 
with a sense of rebellion against this man who had pierced 
the veil behind which she had been hiding herself so long. 

“ I saw your sorrow ; and I knew that there could scarcely 
be so deep a sorrow if there were no memory of sin. Will 
you take my arm down this steep path ?” 

“ No, thank you. I know every step. I could walk 
about this place in my sleep. You have been cruel to me, 
Father Rodwell, very cruel. Promise me one thing byway 
of atonement for your cruelty. Promise me that if I die in 
Rome I shall be buried in this place, and as near Shelley’s 
grave as they can find room to lay me.” 

“ I promise. Yes, it is a sweet spot, is it not ? It was 
down yonder in the old burial ground that Shelley looked 
upon the grave of Keats', and said it was a spot to make 
one in love with death. But I would not have you think 
yourself doomed to an early death, Mrs. Disney. Have 
you never read in the ‘Lives of the Saints ’ how some who 


294 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


were on the point of death have revived at the touch of the 
holy oil, and have lived and renewed their strength, and 
re-entered the world to lead a holier and nobler life than 
they had led before ? Who knows if you were to confess 
your sin, and patiently suffer whatever penance you were 
called upon to bear, new vistas might not open for you ? 
There is more than one way of being happy in this world. 
If you could never again know the sweetness of a domestic 
life — as trusted wife and happy mother — there are other 
and wider lives in which you would count your children and 
your sisters by hundreds. There are sisterhoods in which 
your future might be full of usefulness and full of peace. 
Or, if you had no vocation for that wider life, it might be 
that, touched by your helplessness in the past, and your 
remorse in the present, your husband might find it in his 
heart to forgive that bygone sin, and still to cherish, and 
still to hold you dear.” 

“ No, no,” she cried impatiently. “ I would not live for 
an hour after he knew. I know what he would do. He 
has told me. He would leave me — at once, and forever. I 
should never see his face again. I should be dead to him, 
by a worse death than the grave ; for he would only think 
of me to shudder at my name. Oh, Father Rodwell, Chris- 
tianity must be a cruel creed if it can exact such a sacrifice 
from me. What good can come of his knowing the truth ? 
Only agony to him and shame and despair to me. Can 
that be good ? 

“ Truth is life, and falsehood is death,” answered the 
priest firmly. “You must choose your own course, Mrs. 
Disney ; but there is one argument I may urge as a man of 
the world rather than as a priest. Nothing is ever hidden 
for very long in this world. There is no secret so closely 
kept that someone has not an inkling of it. Better your 
husband should hear the truth from you, in humble self- 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


295 


accusation, than that he should learn it later — perhaps after 
he has mourned you for years — from a stranger’s lips.” 

“ Oh, that would be horrible — too horrible. But I will 
confess to him : I will tell him everything — on my death- 
bed. Yes, when life is ebbing, when the end is close, 
I will tell him. He shall know what a false and perjured 
creature I am. I swore to him — swore before God that 
I was true and faithful — that I loved him and no other. 
And it was true, absolute truth, when I took that oath. 
My sin was a thing of the past. I had loved another, and 
I had let my love lead me into sin. And then my husband 
asked me if I had been true and pure always — always. ‘ Is 
that true, Isola ? I call upon God to hear your answer,’ 
he said. And I answered yes, it was true. I lied before 
God rather than lose my husband’s love ; and God heard 
me, and the blight of his anger has been upon me ever 
since, withering and consuming me.” 

They went down the steep pathway, Father Rodwell first, 
Isola following, between* the crowded graves, the azalias 
and camellias, purple veronica and cream-white guelder 
rose, lilac and magnolia, and on either hand a wilderness 
of roses, red and white. 

The shadows of the cypresses closed over them in that 
deep alley, and the twilight gloom might seem symbolic of 
the passage through death to life ; for beyond the gates 
the level landscape and the city domes and the bell-towers 
were shining in the yellow light of afternoon. 


296 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

“ BUT SOFT AND FRAGRANT IS THE FADED BLOSSOM.” 

Colonel Disney and Allegra were both pleased to wel- 
come Father Rodwell to their home in the great city ; 
pleased to find that his own rooms were close by in the Via 
Babuino, and that he was likely to be their neighbor for 
some weeks. His familiarity with all that was worth seeing 
in the city and its surroundings made him a valuable com- 
panion for people whose only knowledge had been gath- 
ered laboriously from books. Father Rodwell knew every 
picture and every statue in the churches and galleries. There 
was not a building in Christian or Pagan Rome which had 
not its history and its associations for the man who had 
chosen the city as the holiday ground of his busy life long 
before he left the university, and who had returned again 
and again, year after year, to tread the familiar paths and 
ponder over the old records. He had seen many of those 
monuments of Republic and Empire emerge from the 
heaped-up earth of ages ; had seen hills cut down, and 
valleys laid bare ; some picturesque spots made less pictur- 
esque ; other places redeemed from ruin. He had seen the 
squalor and the romance of Mediaeval Rome vanish before 
the march of improvement ; and he had seen the triumph 
of the commonplace and the utilitarian in many a scene 
where the melancholy beauty of neglect and decay had 
once been dear to him. 

With such a guide it was delightful to loiter amidst the 
Palace of the Caesars, or tread the quiet lanes and by-paths 
of the Aventine, that historic hill from whose venerable 
church the bearers of Christ’s message of peace and love 
set out for savage Britain. Allegra was delighted to wan- 
der about the city with such a companion, lingering long 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


-97 


before every famous picture, finding out altar-pieces and 
frescoes which no guidebook would have helped her to dis- 
cover ; sometimes disputing Father Rodwell’s judgment 
upon the artistic value of a picture ; sometimes agreeing 
with him — always bright, animated, and intelligent. 

Isola joined in these explorations as far as her strength 
would allow. She was deeply interested in the churches, 
and in the stories of priest and pope, saint and martyr, which 
Father Rodwell had to tell of every shrine and tomb, whose 
splendor might otherwise have seemed colorless and cold. 
There was a growing enthusiasm in the attention with which 
she listened to every record of that wonder- working Church 
which created Christian Rome in' all its pomp and dignity 
of architecture, and all its glory of art. The splendor of 
those mighty basilicas filled her with an awful sense of the 
majesty of that religion which had been founded yonder in 
darkness and in chains, in Paul’s subterranean prison — 
yonder in tears where Paul and Peter spoke the solemn 
words of parting ; yonder in blood on the dreary road to 
Ostia, where the headsman’s ax quenched the greatest light 
that had shone upon earth since the sacrifice of Calvary. 

Isola went about looking at these things like a creature 
in a dream. These stupendous tabernacles impressed her 
with an almost insupportable sense of their magnitude. 
And with that awestricken sense of power in the Christian 
Church there was interwoven the humiliating consciousness 
of her own unworthiness ; a consciousness sharpened and 
intensified by every word that Father Rodwell had spoken 
in that troubled hour of her involuntary confession. 

He was so kind to her, so gentle, so courteous in every 
word and act, that she wondered sometimes whether he had 
forgotten that miserable revelation ; whether he had for- 
gotten that she was one of the lost ones of this earth, a 
woman who had forfeited woman’s first claim to man’s 


298 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


esteem. Sometimes she found herself lifting her eyes to 
his face in an unpremeditated prayer for pity, as they stood 
before some exquisite shrine of the Madonna, and the 
ineffable purity in the sculptured face looking down at her 
struck like a sharp sword into her heart. That mute 
appeal of Isola’s seemed to ask, “ has the Mother of Christ 
any pity for such a sinner as I ? ” 

Colonel Disney was full of thoughtfulness for his wife in 
all their going to and fro ; and before their day’s rambles 
were half done he would drive her to any quiet spot where 
she might choose to spend a restful hour in the afternoon 
sunshine ; in this or that convent garden, in some shaded 
corner on the Aventine, or among the wild flowers that grow 
in such luxuriance amid the colossal ruins on the Palatine. 
Her favorite resort was still the English Cemetery, and she 
always begged to be set down within reach of that familiar 
gate, where the custodian knew her as well as if she had 
been some restless spirit whose body lay under one of those 
marble urns, and whose ghost passed in and out of the gate 
every day. 

It was in vain that her husband or her sister offered to 
be her companion in these restful hours. She always made 
the same reply. 

“ I am better alone,” she would say. “ It does me good 
to be alone. I don’t like being alone indoors — I get low- 
spirited and nervous — but I like to sit among the flowers, 
and to watch the lizards darting in and out among the 
graves. I am never dull there. I take a book with me ; 
but I don’t read much. I could sit there for hours in a 
summer dream.” 

Martin Disney made a point of giving way to her will in 
all small things. She might be capricious, she might have 
morbid fancies. That was no business of his. It was his 
part to indulge her every whim, and to make her in love 


ALL ALONG THE ELVER. 


299 


with life. All that he asked of Heaven was to spin out that 
attenuated thread. All that he desired was to hold her and 
keep her for his own against death himself. 

The Vendetta was at Civita Vecchia, from which port her 
skipper frequently bore down upon Rome, distracting Alle- 
gra from her critical studies in the picture galleries, and 
from her work in her own little studio, a light, airy room on 
the fourth floor, with a window looking over the Pincian 
Gardens. Captain Hulbert was a little inclined to resent 
Father Rodwell’s frequent presence in the family circle, 
and his too accomplished guidance in the galleries. It was 
provoking to hear a man talk, with an almost Ruskinesque 
enthusiasm and critical appreciation, of pictures which 
made so faint an appeal to the seaman. Here and there 
John Hulbert could see the beauty and merit of a painting, 
and was really touched by the influence of supreme art ; 
but of technical qualities he knew nothing, and could hardly 
distinguish one master from another : was as likely as not 
to take Titian for Veronese, or Veronese for Titian. 

He looked with a skeptical eye at the Anglican priest’s 
cassock and girdle. If Father Rodwell had been a Papist 
it would have been altogether a more satisfactory state of 
things ; but an Anglican — a man who might preach the 
beauty of holy poverty and a celibate life one year and 
marry a rich widow the year after — a man bound only by 
his own wishes. 

Had Allegra been a thought less frank — had she been a 
woman whom it was possible to doubt — the sailor would 
have given himself over to the demon of jealousy; but there 
are happily some women in whom truth and purity are so 
transparently obvious that even an anxious lover cannot 
doubt them. Allegra was such an one. No suspicion of 
coquetry ever lessened her simple womanliness. She was 
a woman of whom a man might make a friend : a woman 


3 °° 


ALL ALONG THE RLVER. 


whose feelings and meanings he could by no possibility 
mistake. 

He had pleaded his hardest and pleaded in vain for a 
June wedding. Isola’s state of health was too critical for 
the contemplation of any change in the family circle. 

“ She could not do without me, nor could Martin either,” 
Allegra told her lover. “ It is I who keep house and man- 
age their money, and see to everything for them. Martin 
has been utterly helpless since this saddening anxiety 
began. He thinks of nothing but Isola, and her chances 
of recovery. I cannot leave him while she is so ill.” 

“ Have you any hope of her ever being better, my dear 
girl ? ” 

“ I don’t know. It has been a long and wearing 
illness.” 

“ It is not illness, Allegra. It is a gradual decay. My 
fear is that she will never revive. There is no marked dis- 
ease — nothing for medicine to fight against. Such cases 
as hers are the despair of doctors. A spring has been 
broken somehow in the human machine. Science cannot 
mend it.” 

Allegra was very much of her sweetheart’s opinion. 

The English doctor in Rome was as kind and attentive 
as the doctor at San Remo ; but, although he had not yet 
pronounced the case hopeless, he took a by no means 
cheerful view of his patient’s condition. He recommended 
Colonel Disney to leave the city before the third week in 
May, and to take his wife to Switzerland, traveling by easy 
stages, and doing all he could to amuse and interest her. 
If on the other hand it were important for Colonel Disney 
to be in England, he might take his wife back to Cornwall 
in June. But in this case she must return to the south in 
October. Lungs and heart were both too weak for the 
risks of an English winter. 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


3 CI 


“We will not go back to England,” decided Disney. 
“ My wife is not fond of Cornwall. Italy has been a de- 
light to her, and Switzerland will be new ground. God 
grant the summer may bring about an improvement ! ” 

The doctor said very little, and promised nothing. 
Closely as they watched her, with anxious loving looks, 
it may be that, seeing her every day, even their eyes did not 
mark the gradual decline of vitality — the inevitable advance 
of decay. She never complained ; the cough that marked 
the disease which had fastened on her lungs since Feb- 
ruary was not a loud or seemingly distressing cough. It 
was only now and then, when she tried to walk uphill, or 
over exerted herself in anyway, that her malady became 
painfully obvious in the laboring chest, flushed cheek, and 
panting breath ; but she made light even of these symp- 
toms, and assured her husband that Rome was curing her. 

Her spirits had been less equable since Father Rodwell’s 
appearance. She had alternated between a feverish in- 
tensity and a profound dejection. Her changes of mood 
had been sudden and apparently causeless ; and those who 
watched and cherished her could do nothing to dispel the 
gloom that often clouded over her. If she was questioned 
she could only say that she was tired. She would never 
admit any reason for her melancholy. 


CHAPTER XXV. 

“ we’ll bind you fast in silken cords.” 

Captain Hulbert was not selfish enough to plead for 
his personal happiness in the midst of a household shad- 
owed by the foreboding of a great sorrow. Martin Disney’s 
face, as he looked at his wife in those moments which too 
plainly marked the rapid progress of decay, was in itself 


3° 2 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


enough to put a check upon a lover’s impatience. How 
could any man plead for his own pleasure — for the roses 
and sunshine of life — in the presence of that deep despair? 

“ He knows that he is doomed to lose her,” thought Hul- 
bert ; “ knows it, and yet tries to hope. I never saw such 
intense, unquestioning love. One asks one’s self involun- 
tarily about any woman — Is she worth it ? ” 

And then he thought of Allegra, truthful and impulsive, 
strong as steel, transparent as crystal. Yes, such a woman 
as that was worth the whole of a man’s heart — worthy that 
a man should live or die for her. But it seemed to him 
that to compare Isola with Allegra was to liken a sapling 
ash to an oak. 

He resigned himself to his disappointment, talked no 
more of Venice and the starlit lagunes, the summer nights 
on the Lido, and quoted no more of Ruskin’s rhapsodies ; 
but he came meekly day after day to join in the family ex- 
cursion, wherever it might be. He had enough and to 
spare of ecclesiastical architecture and of the old masters 
during those summer like mornings and afternoons. He 
heard more than enough of the mad Caesars and the bad 
Caesars, of wicked empresses and lowborn favorites, of 
despotism throned in the palace and murder waiting at the 
gate, of tyranny drunken with power long abused, and 
treason on the watch for the golden opportunity to change 
one profligate master for another, ready to toss up for the 
new Caesar, and to accept the basest slave for master, would 
he but open the Imperial treasury wide enough to the Prae- 
torian’s rapacious hands. 

“ People gloat over these hoary old walls as if they would 
like to have lived under Caligula,” said the sailor, with a 
touch of impatience, when Father Rod well had been expa- 
tiating upon a little bit of molding which decorated a 
fragment of staircase. 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 3°3 

“ It would have been at least a picturesque time to have 
lived in,” said Allegra. “ Existence must have been a 
series of pictures by Alma Tadema.” 

Captain Hulbert was startled out of his state of placid 
submission by the intervention of a most unexpected 
ally. 

It was one of the hottest days there had been since they 
came to Rome — a day on which to cross the Piazza in front 
of St. Peter’s was like plunging into a bath of molten gold; 
in which to enter the great Basilica was like going into an 
ice house. Father Rodwell was not with them upon this 
particular morning. They were a party of four, and a 
roomy landau had been engaged to drive them to the 
Church of St. Paul beyond the walls, and thence to the 
tomb of Cecilia Metella. Isola and Allegra had made 
pilgrimages to the spot before to-day. It was a drive they 
both loved, a glimpse of the pastoral life outside the gates 
of the city, and a place forever associated with the poet 
whose verse was written in their hearts. 

They dawdled over a light luncheon of macaroni and 
Roman wine at a cafe near the great cold white church, 
and then they drove through the sandy lanes in the heat of 
the afternoon, languid all of them, and Isola paler and more 
weary-looking than she had been for some time. Her 
husband watched her anxiously, and wanted to go back to 
Rome, lest the drive should be too exhausting for her. 

“ No, no, I am not tired,” she answered impatiently. “ I 
would much rather go on. I want to see that grand old 
tower again,” and then she quoted the familiar lines 
dreamily, with a faint pleasure in their music : 


Perchance she died in youth : it may be bowed 
With woes far heavier than the ponderous tomb 
That weighed upon her gentle dust.” 


3 ° 4 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


“Besides," she added confusedly, “I want to have a 
little private talk with Captain Hulbert while Allegra is 
busy with her everlasting memoranda in that dirty little 
sketch book which is stuffed with the pictures of the future. 
May I ? ” 

She looked from her husband to Captain Hulbert plead- 
ingly. The latter was first to answer. 

“ I am at your service, Mrs. Disney ; ready to be interro- 
gated, or lectured, or advised, whichever you like." 

“ I am not going to do either of the three. I am go- 
ing to ask you a favor." 

“ Consider that to ask is to be obeyed.” 

They alighted in the road by the tomb a few minutes 
afterward. Allegra’s note book was out immediately, a 
true artist’s book, crammed with every conceivable form 
of artistic reminiscence. 

“ Go and talk, " she said, waving her hand to Isola 
and Hulbert ; and then she clambered up a bank opposite 
that tower of other days to get a vantage ground for her 
sketch. 

She had made a score of sketches on the same spot ; 
but there were always new details to jot down, new ef- 
fects and ideas, on that vast level which frames the gran- 
deur of Rome. Yonder the long slanting line of the 
aqueduct ; here the living beauty of calm-fronted Roman 
oxen moving with stately paces along the dusty way, the 
incarnation of strength and majesty, patience and labor. 

“ Stay here and smoke your cigar, Martin," said Isola, 
“ while Captain Hulbert and I go for a little stroll." 

Her husband smiled at her tenderly, cheered by her un- 
wonted cheerfulness. His days and hours alternated be- 
tween hope and despair. This moment was a moment 
of hope. 

“ My dearest, you are full of mystery to-day," he said, 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 3°5 

“ and I am full of curiosity. But I can wait. Consider me 
a statue of patience, and take your time.” 

She put her hand through Hulbert’s arm, and led him 
away from the other two, sauntering slowly along beside 
the grassy bank. 

“ I want to talk about your wedding,” she said, as soon 
as they were out of hearing. “ When are you and Allegra 
going to be married ? ” 

“ My dear Mrs. Disney, you know that I pledged myself 
to wait a year from the time of our engagement — a year 
from last Christmas — you must remember. That was to be 
my probation.” 

“ Yes, I remember ; but that is all foolishness — idle 
romance. Allegra knows that you love her. I don’t think 
she could know it any better after another half-year’s devo- 
tion on your part.” 

“ I don’t think she could know it better after another half 
century. I know I could never love her more than I do 
now. I know I shall never love her less.” 

“ I believe that you are good and true,” said Isola. “ As 
true and — almost — as good as he is” — with a backward 
glance at her husband. “ If I did not believe that I should 
not have thought of saying what I am going to say.” 

“ I am honored by your confidence in me.” 

“ I love Allegra too well to hazard her happiness. I know 
she loves you — has never cared for anyone else. She was 
heart-whole till she saw you. She had no more thought of 
love, or lovers, than a child. I want you to marry her soon, 
Captain Hulbert — very soon, before we leave Rome. 
Would you not like to be married in Rome ?” 

“ I would like to be married in Kamtschatka, or Nova 
Zembla — or the worst of those places whose very names 
suggest all kinds of uncomfortableness. There is no dis- 
mallest corner of the earth which Allegra could not glorify 


3°6 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


and make dear. But, as you suggest, Rome is classic — 
Rome u is mediaeval — Rome is Roman Catholic. It would 
be a new sensation for a plain man like me to be married in 
Rome. I suppose it could not be managed in St. Peter’s ? ” 

“ Oh, Captain Hulbert, I want you to be serious.” 

“ I am serious. Why, this is a matter of life or death 
to me. But I pleaded so. hard for a June wedding — and to 
no purpose. I talked with the artfulness of the first temp- 
ter — I tried to play upon her vanities as an artist. All in 
vain ! ” 

“ Tell her that I have set my heart on seeing her mar- 
ried,” said Isola, in a low voice. 

“ Why, of course you will see her married, whether she 
be married in Rome or at Trelasco. That is no argument.” 

“ But it is ; indeed it is. Tell her that, if I am to be at 
her wedding, it must be soon, very soon. Life is so uncer- 
tain at best ; and, although I feel well and strong some- 
times — to-day for instance — there are other times when I 
think the end is nearer than even my doctor suspects. And 
I know by his face that he does not give me a long lease of 
life.” 

“ My dear Mrs. Disney, this is morbid. I am grieved to 
hear you talk in such a strain.” 

“ Don’t notice that. Don’t say anything depressing to 
Allegra. I want her to go off to her Venetian honeymoon 
very happily — with not one cloud in her sky. She has been 
so good and dear to me. It would be hard if 1 could not 
rejoice in her happiness. I have rejoiced in it always ; I 
shall take pleasure in it to the end of my life. It is the 

one unclouded spot ” She stopped with a troubled air. 

“Yes, it is a happy fate, to have cared for one, and one 
only, and to be loved again. Will you do what I ask you, 
Captain Hulbert ? will you hurry on the wedding — for my 
sake ? ” 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 3°7 

“ I would do anything difficult and unwelcome for your 
sake — how much more will I hasten my own happiness — if 
I can. But Allegra is a difficult personage — as firm as a 
rock when she has once made up her mind. And she has 
made up her mind to stay with you till you are quite well 
and strong again.” 

“ She need not leave me forever because she marries. 
She can come back to me after a long honeymoon. We 
can all meet in Switzerland in August — if — if I go there 
with Martin, as he proposes.” 

“ Well, I will try to bend that stubborn will.” 

“ And you don’t mind having a quiet wedding, if she 
consents to a much earlier date ? ” 

“ Mind ? The quieter the better for me ! I think a 
smart wedding is a preventive of matrimony. That sounds 
like a bull. I will say I think there are many wretched 
bachelors walking about, who might have been happily 
married, if it had not been for the fear of a smart wedding. 
We will have as quiet a wedding as you and Disney can 
desire ; but I should like Lostwithiel to be present. He is 
my only near relation, and I don’t want to cut him on the 
happiest day of my life. Why, Mrs. Disney, you are tremb- 
ling ! You have agitated yourself about this business ; 
you have talked too much for your strength. Let me take 
you back to the carriage.” 

“ Presently — yes, yes. The heat overcame me for a 
moment, that’s all. Would you mind not waiting for Lord 
Lostwithiel ? I want the marriage to be at once — directly 
— as soon as Father Rodwell can get it arranged. And you 
don’t know where a telegram would reach your brother.” 

“ Indeed, I do not ; but by speculating a few messages 
of inquiry, I could soon find out the whereabouts of the 
Eurydice." 

“ Don’t wait for that. There would be a delay. There 


3°8 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


must be delay if you have to consult any distant person’s 
convenience. We are all here — you and Allegra, and 
Martin and I — and Father Rodwell would like to marry 
you. What do you want with anybody else ? ” 

“ Upon my word, I think you are right ! Allegra is a 
creature of impulse — where principle is not at stake. If I 
asked her to marry me six weeks hence, she would parley 
and make terms. If I ask her to marry me in a few days 
— before we leave Rome — she may consent. Have you 
talked to your husband ? Is he of your opinion ?” 

“ I have said nothing to him ; but I know he would be 
pleased to see you and Allegra bound together for life.” 

“ I will talk to him this afternoon. One can get every- 
thing one wants in Rome, I believe, from a papal dispensa- 
tion down to an English solicitor. If we can but rattle 
through some kind of marriage settlement to your husbaud’s 
satisfaction, we can be married on the earliest day to which 
my darling will consent. God bless you, Mrs. Disney, for 
your unselfish thought of other people’s happiness ! You 
are not like most invalids, who would let a sister languish 
in lifelong spinsterhood rather than lose her as a nurse. 
God grant that your unselfishness may be recompensed 
by speedy recovery ! ” 

“ There will be a weight off my mind when you and 
Allegra are married,” said Isola gravely. 

They walked slowly back to the spot where they had left 
their companions. A pair of oxen, with an empty cart, 
were standing in the road below the tomb, their driver 
lounging across the rough vehicle — man and beasts motion- 
less as marble. Allegra sat on a hillock opposite, sketch- 
ing the group. She had bribed the man to draw up for abrief 
halt while she made her rough sketch. The massive heads 
were drooping under the afternoon sun ; the tawny and 
cream-hued coats were stained with dust and purpled with 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER . 309 

the sweat of patient labor. The creatures looked as gra- 
cious and as wise as if they had been gods in disguise. 

“ Now, Allegra,” said her brother, emptying the ashes out 
of his pipe, “ are you ready to go home ? ” 

“ Yes, I have just dotted down what will serve to remind 
me of those splendid beasts ; but I should like to have 
them standing there all day, so that I could paint them 
seriously. They are the finest models I have seen in Rome. 
Have you two quite finished your secrets and mysteries ?” 
she asked, smiling at Isola, who was looking brighter than 
usual. 

“ Yes ; I have said all I had to say, and have been 
answered as I wished to be answered. I shall go home 
very happy.” 

“ That’s a good hearing,” said Disney, as he helped her 
into the landau. 

Allegra had talked of wanting to revisit Caracalla’s 
Baths, a wish of which Isola reminded her as they drove 
hack to the city, along the Appian Way ; whereupon Cap- 
tain Hulbert suggested that he and his sweetheart should 
stop to explore the ruins, while Disney and Isola went 
home. 

Allegra blushed and consented, always a little shy at 
being alone with her lover, especially since he pleaded so 
earnestly for a summer honeymoon. 

“ Mrs. Disney, your right place in Rome would be the 
embassy,” murmured Hulbert, as he shut the carriage door; 
“ you are a born diplomatist.” 

“ What makes my dearest so pleased and happy this 
afternoon ?” asked Disney, as he changed to the seat be- 
side his wife. 

“ I am glad because I think Captain Hulbert will per- 
suade Allegra to marry him before we leave Rome. I 
begged him to hasten their marriage. That was my 


3io 


ALL ALONG THE EL FEE. 


mystery, Martin. That was what he and I were talking 
about.” 

“ But why wish to hasten matters, dear ? They are very 
happy as it is — and a year is not a long engagement.” 

“ Too long for me, Martin. I want to see her happy — I 
want to see them.married before ” 

“ Before what, dear love ? ” he asked tenderly. 

“ Before we leave Rome.” 

“ That would be very short work. We leave in a fort- 
night. The weather will be growing too hot for you if we 
linger later.” 

“Yes, but everything can be settled in iess time than 
that. Ask Father Rodwell. He knows Rome so well that 
he can help you to arrange all details.” 

“ I thought that every young woman required at least six 
months for the preparation of her trousseau ? ” 

“ Not such a girl as Allegra. She is always well dressed, 
and her wardrobe is the perfection of neatness — but she is 
not the kind of girl with whom new clothes are the distinct- 
ive features of marriage. I don’t think the trousseau will 
create any difficulty.” 

“ And when she is gone what will you do without your 
devoted companion ! Who will nurse you and take care of 
you ? ” 

“ Lottchen, or any other servant,” she answered with a 
kind of weary indifference. “ It would be very hard if my 
bad health should stand in the way of Allegra’s happiness. 
So long as you will stay with me and be kind to me, Martin, 
I need no one else.” 

Tears were streaming down her cheeks as she turned 
from him, pretending to be interested in the convent walls 
on the edge of the hill, below which they were driving. 

“ So long as I stay with you ! My darling, do you think 
business, or pleasure, or any claim in this world will ever 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


3 ir 

take me away from you any more ? All your hours are 
precious to me, Isola. I hardly live when I am away from 
you. Wherever your doctor may send you, or your own 
caprice may lead you, I shall go with you unhesitatingly — 
without one regret for anything I leave behind.” 

“ Don’t say these things,” she cried suddenly, with a 
choking sob ; “you are too good to me. There are times 
when I can’t bear it.” 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

“ SO, FULL CONTENT SHALL HENCEFORTH BE MY LOT.” 

Allegra was not inexorable. There, in the ruins of the 
Imperial baths, where Shelley dreamed the wonder-dream 
of his Prometheus, Captain Hulbert pleaded his cause. 
Could love resist the pleadings of so fond a lover ? Could 
art withstand the allurements of Venice — Titian and Tin- 
toretto, the Cathedral of St. Mark and the Palace of the 
Doges, the birthplace of Desdemona and of Shylock, the 
home of Byron and of Browning ? 

She consented to a Roman marriage. 

“ I can’t help wishing I could be a Papist just for that 
one day,” she said lightly. “ An Anglican marriage seems 
so dry and cold compared with the pomps and splendors of 
Rome.” 

“ Dearest, the plainest Christian rites are enough, if they 
but make us one.” 

“ I think we are that already, John,” she answered shyly; 
and then, nestling by his side as they sat in the wide soli- 
tude of that stupendous pile, she took his hand and held it 
in both her own, looking down at it wonderfully — a well- 
formed hand, strong and muscular, broadened a little by 
seafaring. 


312 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


“ And you are to be my husband,” she said. “ Mine ! I 
shall speak of you to people as my own peculiar property. 
‘ My husband will do this or that.’ ‘ My husband has gone 
out, but he will be home soon.’ Home. Husband. How 
strange it sounds ! ” 

“ Strange and wonderful now, love. Sweet and familiar 
before our honeymoon is ended.” 

They went out of the broad spaces that were once popu- 
lous with the teeming life of Imperial Rome, splendid with 
all that art could create of beauty and of grandeur — wrapt 
in the glamour of their dream. They walked all the way to 
the Piazza di Spagna in the same happy dream, as uncon- 
scious of the ground they trod on as if they had been float- 
ing in the air. 

They were a very cheerful party at dinner that evening. 
Father Rodwell dined with them, and was delighted at the 
idea of having to marry these happy lovers. He took the 
arrangement of the ceremony into his own hands. The 
English chaplain was his old friend, and would let him do 
what he liked in his church. 

“ It is to be a very quiet wedding,” said the colonel, when 
the three men were smoking together in a loggia looking 
on the little garden of orange trees and oleanders, in the 
gray dim beginning of night, when the thin crescent moon 
was shining in a sky still faintly flushed with sunset. “ Isa 
could not stand anything like bustle or excitement. Luckily 
we have no friends in Rome. There is no one belonging 
to us who could be aggrieved at not being invited.” 

“ And there is no one except Lostwithiel on my side who 
has the slightest claim to be present,” said Hulbert. “ I am 
almost as well off as the Flying Dutchman in that respect. 
I am not troubled with relations. All the kinsfolk I have 
are distant, and I allow them to remain so. My dear Dis- 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER . 


3 T 3 


ney, so far as I am concerned, our wedding cannot be too 
quiet a business. It is the bride I want, mark you, not the 
fuss and flowers, wedding breakfast, and bridesmaids. Let 
us be married at half past ten, and drive from the church 
to the railway station in time for the noonday train. I 
have given up my dream of taking Allegra round Southern 
Italy to the Adriatic. We shall go to Florence first, and 
spend a few days in the galleries, and thence to Venice, 
where we will have the Vendetta brought to us, and anchored 
near the Arsenal, ready to carry us away directly we are 
tired of the city of old memories.” 

Father Rodwell left them and went into the drawing 
room, where Isola and her sister-in-law were sitting in the 
lamplight — Isola’s hands occupied with that soft, fluffy knit- 
ting, which seemed to exercise a soothing influence upon her 
nerves; Allegra leaning over the table idly sketching with 
a light and rapid pencil random reminiscences of the baths, 
the tomb, the grave-eyed oxen, with their great curving 
horns and ponderous foreheads. 

The priest was interested in watching Isola this evening. 
He saw a marked change in the expression of her counten- 
ance, a change which was perceptible to him even in her 
voice and manner — a brightness which might mean a light- 
ened heart, or which might mean religious exaltation. 

“ Has she told him?” he wondered, studying her from 
his place in the shadow as the lamplight shone full upon her 
wasted features and hectic coloring. “ Has she taken 
courage and confessed her sin to that loyal, loving husband ; 
and is the burden lifted from her heart ? ” 

No ; he could not believe that she had lifted the veil from 
the sad secret of her past. Martin Disney’s unclouded 
brow to-night was not that of a man who had lately learned 
that the wife he loved had betrayed him. There might be 
pardon — there might be peace between husband and wife 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


314 

after such a revelation ; but there could not be the serenity 
which he had seen in Martin Disney’s manner to his wife 
to-night. Such a thunder-clap must leave its mark upon 
the man who suffered it. No ; her secret was still locked 
in her impenitent heart. Sorry — yes. She had drunk the 
cup of remorse in all its bitterness ; but she knew not true 
penitence, the Christian’s penitence, which means self-abase- 
ment and confession. And yet she seemed happier. There 
was a look of almost holy resignation upon the pale and 
placid brow, and in the too-lustrous eyes. Something had 
happened — some moral transformation which made her a 
new being. 

Father Rodwell drew his chair nearer to her, and looked 
at her earnestly with his cordial, almost boyish smile. He 
was a remarkably young-looking man, a man upon whom 
long years of toil in the dark places of the earth had exer- 
cised no wasting or withering influence. He had loved his 
work too well ever to feel the pressure of the burdens he 
carried. His gospel had been always a cheerful gospel, and 
he had helped to lighten sorrows, never to make them 
heavier. He was deeply interested in Isola, and had been 
watchful of all her changes of mood since their conversation 
in the shadow of the old Roman wall. He had seen her 
impressed by the history and traditions of the Church, 
moved by the pathos of holy lives, touched almost to tears 
by sacred pictures ; and he saw in her character and dis- 
position a natural bent toward piety, exactly that receptive 
temperament which moves holy women to lives of self- 
abnegation and heroic endeavor. He had lent her some of 
those books which he loved best and read most himself, and 
he had talked with her of religion, careful not to say too 
much or with too strong an emphasis, and never by any 
word alluding to her revelation of past guilt. He wanted 
to win her to perfect trustfulness in him, to teach her to 


ALL ALONG THE EL FEE. 


3 T 5 

lean upon him in her helplessness ; until the hour should 
come when she would let him lead her to her husband, in 
the self-abasement of the penitent sinner. 

He looked at her in the lamplight, and her eyes met with 
his with a straighter outlook than he had seen in them for 
a long time. She looked actually happy ; and that look of 
happiness in a face on which death has set its seal has 
always something which suggests a life beyond the grave. 

“ The excitement of this marriage question has brightened 
you wonderfully, Mrs. Disney,” he said. “ We shall have 
you in high health by the wedding-day.” 

“ I am feeling better because I am so glad,” Isola 
answered naively, putting her hand into Allegra’s. 

“ I consider it positively insulting to me as a sister,” 
exclaimed Allegra, bending down to kiss the too-transparent 
hand — such a hand as she had seen in many a picture of 
dying saint in that city. “ You are most unaffectionately 
rejoiced to get rid of me. I have evidently been a tyranni- 
cal nurse, and a dull companion, and you breathe more 
freely at the prospect of release.” 

“ You have been all that is dear and good,” Isola 
answered softly. “ I shall feel dreadfully lonely without 
you ; but it won’t be for long. And I shall be so comforted 
by the knowledge that nothing can come between you and 
your life’s happiness.” 

The two men came in from the loggia, bringing with them 
the cool breath of night. Isola went to the piano and 
played one of those adagios of Mozart’s which came just 
within the limit of her modest powers, and which she played 
to perfection, all her soul in the long lingering phrases, the 
tender modulations, with their suggestions of shadowy 
cathedral aisles, and the smoke of incense in the deepening 
dusk of a vesper service. Those bits of Mozart, the slow 
movements from the sonatas, an Agnus Dei, or an Ave 


3 l6 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


Maria from one of the masses, satisfied Captain Hulbert’s 
highest ideas of music. He desired nothing grander or 
more scientific. The new learning of the Wagnerian school 
had no charm for him. 

“ If you ask me about modern composers, I am for 
Verdi and Gounod,” he said. “ For gayety and charm, 
give me Auber, Rossini, and Boildieu ; for pathos, Weber ; 
for everything, Mozart. There you have the whole of my 
musical education.” 

The question of settlements was opened seriously be- 
tween Martin Disney and his future brother-in-law early 
on the following morning. Hulbert wanted to settle all 
the money he had in the world upon Allegra. 

“ She is ever so much wiser than I am,” he said. “ So 
she had better be my treasurer. My property is all in 
stocks and shares. My grandfather was fond of stockjob- 
bing, and made some very lucky investments which he settled 
upon my mother, with strict injunctions that they should 
not be meddled with by her trustees. My share of her 
fortune comes to a little over nine hundred a year. I came 
into possession of it when I came of age, and it is mine to 
dispose of as I like ; trusts expired, trustees cleared off ; 
in point of fact, both gone over to the majority, poor old 
souls, after having had many an anxious hour about those 
South American railway bonds and Suez Canal shares, 
which turned up trumps after all. I’ve telegraphed to the 
family lawyer for a schedule of the property; and, when that 
comes, just tie it all up in as tight a knot as the law can 
tie, and let it belong to Allegra and her children after 
her. Consider me paid off.” 

Martin Disney laughed at the lover’s impetuosity, and 
told him that he should be allowed to bring so much and 
no more into settlement. Allegra’s income was less than 
two hundred a year, a poor little income upon which she 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


317 


had fancied herself rich, so modest is woman's measure of 
independence as compared with man’s. It would be for 
the lawyer to decide what proportion the husband’s settle- 
ments should bear to the wife’s income. Father Rodwell 
had given Colonel Disney an introduction to a solicitor of 
high character : a man who had occupied an excellent 
position in London until damaged lungs obliged him to 
seek a home in the South. 

With this gentleman’s aid, matters were soon put in train ; 
and, while the men were in the lawyer’s office, the two 
women were choosing Allegra’s wedding gown. 

The young lady had exhibited a rare indifference upon 
the great trousseau question. She was not one of those 
girls whose finery is all external, and who hide rags and 
tatters under aesthetic coloring and Watteau pleats. She 
was too much of an artist to endure anything unseemly in 
her belongings ; and her everyday clothes, just as they were, 
might have been exhibited, like a royal trousseau, without 
causing any other comment than “ How nice ! ” “ What 
good taste ! ” “ What exquisite needlework ! ” 

The hands which painted such clever pictures were as 
skillful with the needle as with the brush ; and Allegra had 
never considered that a vocation for art meant uselessness 
in every feminine industry. She had attended to her own 
wardrobe from the time she learned plain sewing at her 
first school ; and now, as she and Isola looked over the 
ample array of underlinen, the pretty cambric peignoirs, 
and neatly trimmed petticoats, they were both of one 
mind, that there was little need of fuss or expenditure. 

“ I have plenty of summer frocks,” said Allegra. “ So 
really there is only my traveling gown to see about, that 
is to say, the gown I am to be married in.” 

“ But you must have a real wedding gown, all the same : 
a white satin gown, with lace and pearls,” pleaded Isola. 


3i8 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


“ When you go to dinner parties, by and by, you will be 
expected to look like a bride.” 

“ Dinner parties ! Oh, those are a long way off. We are 
not likely to be asked to any parties while we are wandering 
about Italy. I can get a gown when I go home.” 

Allegra’s wedding day had dawned — a glorious day — 
a day to make one drunken with the beauty of sky and 
earth ; a day when the vetturini in the Piazza di Spagna 
sat and dreamed on their coach boxes — narcotized by the 
sun — when the reds and blues in the garments of the 
flower-women were almost too dazzling for the eye to look 
upon, and when every garden in the city sent forth tropical 
odors of roses steeped in sunlight. 

The church in which the lovers were to be made one was 
a very homely temple as compared with the basilicas yonder 
on the hills of Rome. But what did that matter to Allegra 
this morning as she stood before the altar and spoke the 
words which gave her to the man she loved ? A flood of 
sunshine streamed upon the two figures of bride and bride- 
groom, and touched the almost spectral face of the bride’s 
sister-in-law, a face which attracted as much attention as 
the bride’s fresh bloom and happy smile. It was a face 
marked for death, yet beautiful in decay. The large violet 
eyes were luminous with the light that never was on land 
or sea — the light of worlds beyond the world we know. 
There was something loftier than happiness in that vivid 
look, something akin to exaltation — the smile of the martyr 
at the stake — the martyr for whom Heaven’s miraculous 
intervention changes the flames of the death-pile into the 
soft fanning of seraphic wings ; the martyr unconscious 
of earthly pains and earthly cruelties ; who sees the skies 
opening and the glorious company of saints and angels 
gathered about the great white throne. 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


319 


Father Rodvvell saw that spiritual expression in the pale, 
wasted face, and he told himself that a lost soul could not 
look out of eyes like those. If death were near, as he 
feared, the true repentance for which he had prayed many 
an earnest prayer was not far off. 

Bride and bridegroom were to leave Rome by the mid- 
day train. Colonel Disney was going to see the last of 
them at the station, but Isola and her sister-in-law were to 
say good-by in the vestry, and to part at the church door. 
And now Father Rodwell’s brief but fervent address had 
been spoken, the Wedding March pealed from the organ, 
and the small wedding party went into the vestry to sign 
the registers. 

Isola was called upon for her signature as one of the wit- 
nesses. She signed in a bold, clear hand, without one 
tremulous line, her husband looking over her shoulder as 
she wrote. 

“ That doesn’t look like an invalid’s autograph, does it, 
Hulbert ?” he asked, snatching at every token of hope, 
unwilling to believe what his doctors and his own convic- 
tions told him — expecting a miracle. 

They had warned him that he could not keep her long. 
They had advised him to humor her fancies, to let her 
be present at the wedding, even at the hazard of her suf- 
fering afterward for that exertion and excitement. She 
would suffer more perhaps — physically as well as mentally — 
if she were thwarted in her natural wish to be by Allegra’s 
side on that day. 

All was finished. Neither Church nor law could do any- 
thing more toward making the lovers man and wife. The 
law might undo the bond for them in the time to come, 
but the part of the Church was done for ever. In the eye 
of the Church their union was indissoluble. 


3 2 ° 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


Isola clung with her arms round the bride’s neck. 

“ Think of me sometimes, dearest, in the years to come- 
Think that I loved you fondly. Be sure that I was grate- 
ful for all your goodness to me,” she said tearfully. 

“ My own love, I shall think of you every day till we meet 
again.” 

“ And if we never meet again on earth — will you remem- 
ber me kindly ? ” 

“Isa, ’how can you ?” cried Allegra, silencing the pale 
lips with kisses. 

“ You may be glad to think how much you did toward 
making my life happy — happier than it ought to have 
been,” Isola went on in a low voice. “ Dearest, I am 
more glad of your marriage than words can say ; and, 
Allegra, love him with all your heart, and never let your 
lives be parted — remember, dearest, never, never let any- 
thing upon this earth part you from him.” 

Her voice was choked with sobs, and then came a worse 
fit of coughing than she had suffered for some time : a fit 
which left her exhausted and speechless. Her husband 
looked at her in an agony of apprehension. 

“ Let me take you home, Isa,” he said. “ You’ll be better 
at home, lying down by your sunny window. This vestry 
is horribly cold. Hulbert, if you and Allegra will excuse 
me, I won’t see you off at the station. Father Rodwell will 
go with you, perhaps. He’ll be of more use than I could 
be ; and we shall see each other very soon again in Switzer- 
land, please God.” 

“Yes, yes. There is no need for you to go,” Hulbert 
answered, grasping his hand, distressed for another man’s 
pain in the midst of his own happiness. There death, and 
the end of all joy ; here the new life with its promises of 
gladness just opening before him. Such contrasts must 
needs seem hard. 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER . 


321 


They all went to the church door, where the carriages 
were waiting. Only a few idlers loitered about the pave- 
ment, faintly interested in so shabby a wedding ; a poor 
array of one landau and one brougham, the brougham to 
take the travelers to the station, where their luggage had 
been sent by another conveyance. 

The two women kissed each other once more before 
Allegra stepped into the carriage, Isola too weak for speech, 
and able only to clasp the hands that had waited on her in 
so many a weary hour ; the clever hands, the gentle hands, 
to which womanly instinct and womanly love had given all 
the skillfulness of a trained nurse. 

Disney lifted his wife into the landau, Father Rodwell 
helping him, full of sympathy. 

“ You’ll dine with us to-night, I hope,” said the colonel. 
“ We shall be very low if we are left to ourselves.” 

“ I’ve an engagement for this evening ; but, yes, I’ll get 
myself excused, and spend the evening with you, if you 
really want me.” 

“ Indeed we do,” answered Disney heartily ; but Isola 
was dumb. Her eyes were fixed upon -the distant point at 
which the brougham had disappeared round a corner, on its 
way to the station. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

“ GONE DEEPER THAN ALL PLUMMETS SOUND.” 

Church bells are always ringing in that city of many 
churches, and there were bells ringing solemnly and slowly 
as Isola walked feebly up the two flights of stairs that led 
to Colonel Disney’s lodging. She walked even more slowly 
than usual ; and her husband could hear her laboring breath 


3 22 


ALL ALONG THE EL FEE. 


as she went up, step by step, leaning on the banister rail. 
He had offered her his arm ; but she had repulsed him, 
almost rudely, at the bottom of the stairs. 

They went into the drawing room, which was bright with 
flowers in a sunlit dusk, the sun streaming in through the 
narrow opening between the Venetian shutters, which had 
been drawn together, but not fastened, All was very still 
in the quiet house ; so still that they could hear the splash 
of the fountain in the Piazza, and the faint rustling of the 
limes in the garden. 

Husband and wife stood facing each other : he anxious 
and alarmed, she deadly pale, and with gleaming eyes. 

“ Well, she is gone, she is Mrs. Hulbert now, and she be- 
longs to him and not to us any more,” said Disney, talking 
at random, watching his wife’s face in nervous apprehension 
of he knew not what. “We shall miss her sadly. Aren’t 
you sorry she is married, Isola, after all ? ” 

“ Sorry ! No ! I am glad ; glad with all my heart. I 
have waited for that.” 

And then, before he was aware, she had flung herself at 
his feet, and was kneeling there, with her head hanging 
down, her hands clasped : a very Magdalen. 

“ I waited till they were married so that you should not 
refuse to let her marry his brother ; waited to tell you what 
I ought to have told you at once, when you came home 
from India. My only hope of pardon or of peace was to 
have told you then ; to have left you forever then, never to 
have dared to clasp your hand ; never to have dared to call 
myself your wife ; never to have become the mother of 
your child. All my life since that day has been one long 
lie ; and nothing that I have suffered — not all my agonies 
of remorse, can atone for that lie, unless God and you will 
accept my confession and my atonement to-day.” 

“Isola, for God’s sake, stop.” 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 3 2 3 

Again the racking cough seized her, and she sank speech- 
less at his feet. 

He lifted her in his arms and carried her to the sofa, and 
flung open the shutters and let the light and air stream in 
upon her, as she lay prostrate and exhausted, wiping her 
white lips with a blood-stained handkerchief. He looked 
at her in a kind of horrified compassion. He thought that 
she was raving, that the excitement of the morning had 
culminated in fever and delirium. He was going to ring 
for help, meaning to send instantly for her doctor, when 
she stopped him, laying her thin cold hand upon his arm, 
and holding him by her side. 

“ Sit down by me, Martin ; don’t stop me, I must tell you 
all the truth.” 

Her words came slowly, in gasps ; then with a great 
effort she gathered up the poor remnant of her strength, 
and went on in a low, tremulous voice, yet with the tone of 
one whose resolve was as strong as death itself. 

“ There was a time when I thought I could never tell 
you — that I must go down to my grave with my sin unre- 
vealed, and that you would never know how worthless a 
woman you had loved and cherished. Then, on my knees 
before my God, I vowed that I would tell you all, at the 
last, when I was dying ; and death is not far off now, 
Martin. I have delayed too long, too long ! There is 
scarcely any atonement in my confession now. I have 
cheated you out of your love.” 

He looked at her, horror-stricken, their two faces close to 
each other as he bent over her pillow. 

No, this was no delirium : there was a terrible reality in 
her words. The eyes looking up at him were not bright 
with fever, but with the steady resolute soul within ; the 
soul panting for freedom from sin. 

“ You have cheated me out of my love,” he repeated 


324 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


slowly. “ Does that mean that you lied to me that night 
in London, that you perjured yourself, calling God to wit- 
ness that you were pure and true ?” 

“ I was true to you then, Martin. My sin had been 
repented of. I was your loving, loyal wife, without one 
thought but of you.” 

“ Loving, loyal ! ” he cried, with passionate scorn. “You 
had deceived and dishonored me ; you had made your 
name a by-word, a jest for such a man as Vansittart Crow- 
ther, and for how many more? You had lied, and lied, and 
lied to me, by every look, by every word that made you 
seem a virtuous woman and a faithful wife. My God, what 
misery ! ” 

“ Martin, have pity ! ” 

“ Pity ! Yes, I pity the women in the streets ! Am I 
to pity you, as I pity them ? You, whom I worshiped, 
whom I thought as pure as the angels, wearing nothing of 
earth but your frail loveliness, which to me always seemed 
more of spirit than of clay. And you were false all the 
time, false as hell, the toy of the first idle profligate whom 
chance flung into your path ? It was Lostwithiel. That 
man was right. He would hardly have dared to talk to you 
as he did if he had not been certain of his facts. Lost- 
withiel was your lover.” 

“ Martin, have pity,” she repeated, with her hands clasped 
before her face. 

“ Pity ! Don’t I tell you that I pity you ; pity you whom 
I used to revere. Great God, can you guess what pain it 
is to change respect for the creature one loves into pity? 
I told you that I would never hurt you, that I would never 
bring shame upon you, Isola. You have no unkindness to 
fear from me. But you have broken my heart, you have 
slain my faith in man and woman. I could have staked my 
life on your purity ; I could have killed the man who slan- 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 3 2 5 

dered you ; and you swore a false oath ; you called upon 
Heaven to witness a lie.” 

“ I was a miserable, guilty creature, Martin. I could 
not bear to lose your love. If death had been my only 
penalty I could have borne it, but not the loss of your love.” 

“ And your sister and her husband. They were as ready 
with their lies as you were,” he exclaimed bitterly. 

“ Don’t blame Gwendoline. I telegraphed to her implor- 
ing her to stand by me, to say that I was in London with 
her.” 

“ And you were not in London ? ” 

“ No, except to pass through, when — when I had escaped 
from him, and was on my way home.” 

“ Escaped ! My God ! What villainy must have been 
used against you — so young, so helpless ! Tell me all — 
without reserve — as freely as you want to be forgiven.” 

“ I was not utterly wicked, Martin. I did not sin deli- 
berately — I did not know what I was doing when I wrecked 
my life and destroyed my peace of mind forever. I never 
meant to forget you — or to be false to you — but I was so 
lonely — so lonely. The days were so dreary and so long — 
even the short autumn days seemed long — and the evenings 
were so melancholy without you. And he came into my life 
suddenly — like a prince in a fairy tale — and at first I thought 
very little about him. He was nothing more to me than 
anyone else in Trelasco — and then somehow we were always 
meeting by accident — in the lanes — or by the sea — and he 
seemed to care for all the things I cared for. The books I 
loved were his favorites. For a long time we talked of 
nothing but his travels, and of my favorite books. There 
was not a word spoken between us that you or anyone else 
could blame.” 

“A common opening,” said Martin Disney, with scathing 
contempt. “ One of the seducer’s favorite leads.” 


326 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


“ And then, one evening in the twilight, he told me that 
he loved me. I was very angry — and I let him see that I 
was angry, and I did all I could to avoid him after that 
evening. I refused to go to the ball at Lostwithiel, know- 
ing that I must meet him there. But they all persuaded 
me — Mrs. Crowther, Mrs. Baynham, Tabitha — they were 
all bent upon making me go — and I went. O God, if I 
had but stood firm against their foolish persuasion, if I had 
but been true to myself ! But my own heart fought against 
me. I wanted to go to the ball — I wanted to see him 
again — if only for the last time. He had talked about 
starting for a long cruise to the Mediterranean. His yacht 
was ready to sail at an hour’s notice.” 

“You went, and you were lost.” 

“ Yes, it is all one long, wild dream when I look back 
upon it. He implored me to go away with him — but I told 
him no, no, no, not for worlds ; nothing should ever make 
me false to my good, true husband — nothing. I swore it — 
swore an oath which I had not the strength to keep. Oh, 
it was cruel, heartless, treacherous — the thing he did after 
that. When I was going away from the dance, he was 
there at my side — and he put me into the wrong carriage — 
his own carriage — and when I had been driven a little way 
from the hotel, the carriage stopped and he got in. I 
thought that he was driving me home. I asked him how 
he could be so cruel as to be with me, in his own carriage, 
at the risk of my reputation — but he stopped me — shut my 
lips with his fatal kiss. O Martin, how can I tell these 
things? The horse went almost at a gallop. I thought 
we should be killed. I was half fainting when the carriage 
stopped at last, after rattling up and down hill — and he 
lifted me out, and I felt the cold night-air on my face, the 
salt spray from the sea. I tried to ask him where I was — 
whether this was home — but the words died on my lips — 


ALL ALONG THE LIVER. 


327 


and I knew no more — knew no more till I woke from that 
dead, dull swoon in the cabin of the Vendetta f and heard 
the sailors calling out to each other, and saw Lostwithiel 
sitting by my side — and then — and then — it was all one 
long dream — a dream of days and nights, and rain, and 
tempest. I thought the boat was going down in that 
dreadful night in the Bay of Biscay. Would to God that 
she had gone down, and hidden me and my sin forever ! 
But she lived through the storm, and in the morning she 
was anchored near Arcachon, and Lostwithiel went on shore, 
and sent a woman in a boat, to bring me clothes, and to 
attend upon me ; and I contrived to go on shore with the 
woman when she went back in, the boat that had brought 
her, and I raised some money on my ring at a jeweler’s in 
Arcachon, and I left by the first train for Paris, and went 
on from Paris to London, and never stopped to rest any- 
where till I got home.” 

“ May God bring me face to face with that ruffian who 
imposed upon your helplessness,” cried Martin Disney. 

“ No, no, Martin ; he was not a ruffian. He betrayed 
me — but I loved him. He knew that I loved him. I was 
as great a sinner as he. I was his before he stole me from 
my home — his in mind and in spirit. It was our unhappy 
fate to love each other. And I forgave him, Martin. I for- 
gave him on that night of tempest, when I thought we were 
going to die together.” 

“ You don’t expect me to forgive him, do you ? You don’t 
expect me to forgive the seducer who has ruined your life 
and mine ? ” 

“ His brother is your sister’s husband, Martin ? ” 

“ I am sorry for it.” 

“Oh, Jack Hulbert is good ; he is frank and true. He 
is not like the other. But, O Martin, pity Lostwithiel and 
his sin, as you pity me and my sin ! It is past and done. 


328 


ALL ALONG THE RLVER. 


I was mad when I cared for him — a creature under a spell. 
You won my heart back to you by your goodness — you 
made me more than ever your own. All that he had ever been 
to me — all that I had ever thought or felt about him — was 
blotted out as if I had never seen his face. Nothing re- 
mained but my love for you — and my guilty conscience, 
the aching misery of knowing that I was unworthy of 
you.” 

He took her hand and pressed it gently in silence. Then, 
after a long pause, when she had dried the tears from her 
streaming^eyes, and was lying faint, and white, and still, 
caring very little what became of her remnant of life, 
he said softly : 

“ I forgive you, Isola, as I pray God to forgive you. I 
have spent some happy years with you — not knowing. If 
it was a delusion, it was very sweet — while it lasted.” 

“It was not a delusion,” she cried, putting her arms 
round his neck, in a sudden rapture at being pardoned. 
“ My love was real.” 

The door opened softly, and the kindly face of the 
Anglican priest looked in. 

“ I have seen the lovers on their way to Florence,” he 
said, “ and now come to ask how Mrs. Disney is after her 
fatiguing morning.” 

“I am happier than I have been for a long time,” an- 
swered Isola, holding out her hand to him. “ I am pre- 
pared for the end, let it come when it may.” 

He knew what she meant, and that the sinner had con- 
fessed her sin. 

“ Come out for a stroll with me, Disney,” he said, “and 
leave your wife to rest for a little while. I’m afraid she’ll 
miss her kind nurse.” 

Disney started up confusedly, like a sleeper awakened, 
and looked at his watch. 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 329 

“ I believe I have a substitute ready to replace Allegra 
by this time,” he said, ringing the bell. 

“ Has the person from England arrived ? ” he asked the 
servant. 

“Yes, sir. She came a quarter of an hour ago.” 

“ Ask her to come here at once." 

“ O Martin, you have not sent for a hospital nurse, I 
hope," cried Isola excitedly. “ Indeed I am not so bad 
as that. I want very little help. I could not bear to have 
a stranger about me." 

“ This is not a stranger, Isola." 

There came a modest knock at the door as he spoke. 

“ Come in," he said ; and a familiar figure, in a gray 
merino gown and smart white cap with pink ribbons, 
entered quietly and came to the sofa where Isola was 
lying. 

“ Tabitha ! " 

“ Don’t say you’re sorry to see an old face again, Mrs. 
Disney. I told Mr. Martin that if you should ever be ill 
and want nursing I’d come to nurse you — if you were at 
the other end of the world — and Mr. Martin wrote and 
told me you wanted an old servant’s care and experience 
to get you over your illness — and here I am. I’ve come 
every inch of the way without stopping, except at the 
buffets ; and all I can say is, Rome is a long way off from 
everywhere, and the country I’ve come through isn’t to be 
compared with Cornwall." 

She ran on breathlessly as she seated herself by that re- 
clining figure with the waxen face. It may be that she 
talked to hide the shock she had experienced on seeing the 
altered looks of the young mistress whose roof she had left 
in the hour of shame. She had left her, refusing to hold 
commune with one who had wronged the best of husbands. 
The faithful servant had taken leave of her mistress in 


33 ° 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


words that had eaten into Isola’s heart as if they had 
been written there with a corrosive acid. 

“ I am very sorry for you, Mrs. Disney,” she said. “ You 
are young and pretty, and you are very much to be pitied 
— and God knows I have loved you as if you were my own 
flesh and blood. But I won’t stay under the roof of a wife 
who has brought shame upon herself and has dishonored 
the best of husbands.” 

Isola had denied nothing, had acknowledged nothing, 
and had let Tabitha go. And now they met again for the 
first time after that miserable parting, and the servant’s 
eyes were full of pitying tears, and the servant’s lips spoke 
only gentlest words. What a virtue there must be in death, 
when so much is forgiven to the dying ! 

Martin Disney went out with the priest, but at the cor- 
ner of the Piazza he stopped abruptly. 

“ Isola’s coughing fit has upset me more than it has her,” 
he said ; “ I’m not fit company for anyone, so I think I’ll 
go for a tramp somewhere, and meet you later at dinner, 
when I’ve recovered my spirits a little.” 

“ A riverderci ,” said the priest, grasping his hand, “ I 
felicitate you upon this day’s union ; a happy one, or I am 
no judge of men and women.” 

“ I don’t know,” Disney answered gloomily. “ The 
woman is as true as steel — the man comes of a bad stock. 
You know what the Scripture says about the tree and the 
fruit.” 

“ There never was a race yet that was altogether bad,” 
said the priest. “ Virtues may descend from remote ances- 
tors, as well as vices — I think you told me, moreover, that 
Captain Hulbert’s mother was a good woman.” 

“ She was. She was one of my mother’s earliest and 
dearest friends.” 

“ Then you should have a better opinion of her son. If 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


331 


ever I met a thoroughly good fellow in my life, I believe 
I met one the day I made Captain Hulbert’s acquaintance.” 

“ Pray God you may be right,” said Disney, with a sigh. 
“ I am no judge of character.” 

He turned abruptly, and skirted the hill on his way to the 
gardens of the Villa Borghese, where he found shade and 
seclusion in the early afternoon. The carriages of fash- 
ionable Rome had not yet begun to drive in at the gate. 
The cypress avenues, the groves of immemorial ilex, the 
verdant lawns where the fountains leapt sunward, were 
peopled only by creatures of fable, fixed in marble, faun 
and dryad, hero and god. Martin Disney plunged into the 
shadow of one of those funereal avenues, and — while the 
sun blazed in almost tropical splendor upon the open 
lawn in the far distance^ — he walked as it were in the deep 
night, whose gloom harmonized with that darker night in 
his despairing heart. 

Great God, how he had loved her ! How he had looked 
up to her, revering even her weakness as the expression of 
a child-like purity. And while he had been praying for 
her, and dreaming of her, and longing for her, and think- 
ing of her as the very type of womanly chastity, unap- 
proachable by temptation, unassailable, secure in her 
innocence and simplicity as Athene or Artemis, with all 
their armor of defense ; while he had so loved and trusted 
her, she had flung herself into the arms of a profligate — 
as easily won as the lightest wanton. She had done this 
thing, and then she had welcomed him with wan, sweet 
smiles to his dishonored home : she had made him drink 
the cup of shame — a by-word it might be for the whole 
parish, as well as for that one man who had dared to hint 
at evil ; and yet he had forgiven her — forgiven one to 
whom pardon meant only a peaceful ending ; forgiven as 
a man holds himself forgiven by an all-merciful God, as he 


332 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


hears words of pity and promise murmured into his ear by 
the priest upon the scaffold, when the rope is round his 
neck and the drop is ready to fall. How could he withhold 
such pardon when he had been taught that God himself for- 
gives the repentant murderer ? 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

“ THOUGH LOVE AND LIFE AND DEATH SHOULD COME 
AND GO.” 

Isola was alone in the spacious Roman drawing room, 
its wide windows open to the soft, warm air. The sun was 
off that side of the house now, and the Venetian shutters 
had been pushed back ; and between the heavy stone 
pillars of the loggia she saw the orange and magnolia 
trees in the garden, and pale gold of the mimosas beyond 
The sun was shining full upon the Hill of Gardens, that 
hill at whose feet Nero was buried in secret, at dead of 
night, by his faithful freedman and the devoted woman 
who loved him to the shameful end of the shameful life ; 
that hill whose antique groves the wicked Caesar’s ghost 
had once made a place of terror. The wicked ghost was 
laid now. Modern civilization had sent Nero the way of 
all phantoms ; and fashionable Rome made holiday on the 
Hill of Gardens. A military band was playing there this 
afternoon in the golden light, and the familiar melodies in 
Don Giovanni were wafted ever and anon in little gusts of 
sweetness to the loggia, where the vivid crimson of waxen 
camellias and the softer rose of oleander blossoms gave 
brightness and color to the dark foliage and the cold white 
stone. 

Isola heard those far-off melodies faint in the distance — 
heard without heeding. The notes were beyond measure 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


333 


familiar, interwoven with the very fabric of her life, for 
those were the airs Martin Disney loved, and she had 
played them to him nearly every evening in their quiet, 
monotonous life. She heard, unheeding, for her thoughts 
had wandered back to the night of the ball at Lostwithiel 
and all that went after it — the fatal night that struck the 
death-knell of peace and innocence. 

How vividly she remembered every detail — her fluttering 
apprehensions during the long drive in the dark lanes, up 
hill and down hill ; her eagerness for the delight of the 
dance, as an unaccustomed pleasure — a scene to which 
young beauty flies as the moth to the flame ; her remorseful 
consciousness that she had done wrong in yielding to the 
temptation which drew her there ; the longing to see Lost- 
withiel, whom she had vowed to herself never to meet 
again of her own free will. She had gone home that after- 
noon resolved to forego the ball, to make any social sacri- 
fice rather than look upon that man whose burning words 
of love, breathed in her ear before she had enough of 
nerve or calmness to silence him, had left her scathed and 
seared as if the lightning had blasted her. She had heard 
his avowal. There was no room now to doubt the mean- 
ing of all that had gone before, no ground now for 
believing in a tender, platonic admiration, lapping her 
round with its soft radiance — a light, but not a fire. That 
which had burnt into her soul to-day was the fierce flame 
of a dishonoring love, the bold avowal of a lover who 
wanted to steal her from her husband, and make her a 
sinner before God. 

She knew this much — had brooded upon it all the even- 
ing — and yet she was going to a place where she must 
inevitably meet the tempter. 

She was going because it was expedient to go ; because 
her persistent refusal to be there might give rise to guesses 


o34 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER . 


and suspicions that would lead to a discovery of the real 
reason of her absence. She had often seen the subtle 
process, the society search-light, by which Trelasco and 
Fowey could arrive at the innermost working of a 
neighbor’s heart, the deepest mysteries of motive. 

She was going to the ball after all, fevered, anxious, full 
of dim forebodings ; and yet with an eager expectancy ; 
and yet with a strange overmastering joy. How should 
she meet him, without unostentatious avoidance, knowing 
how many eyes would be quick to mark any deviation from 
conventional behavior? Somehow or other she was 
resolved to avoid all association with him ; to get her 
programme filled before he could ask her to dance ; or to 
refuse in any case if he asked her. He would scarcely 
venture to approach her after what had been said in the 
lane, when her indignation had been plainly expressed with 
angry tears. No he would hardly dark. And so — in a 
vague bewilderment at finding she was at her journey’s 
end — she saw the lights of the little town close upon her, 
and in the next few minutes her carriage was moving 
slowly in the rank of carriages setting down their freight 
at the door of the inn. 

Vaguely, as in a dream, she saw the lights and the flow- 
ers, the satin gowns and the diamonds, the scarlet and 
white upon the walls, brush and vizard, vizard and brush. 
He was not there. She looked along the crowd, and that 
tall figure and that dark head were absent. She ought to 
have been glad at this respite, and yet her heart grew heavy 
as lead. 

Later he was there, and she was waltzing with him. At 
the last moment, when he was standing before her, cool, 
self-possessed, as it were unconscious of that burning past, 
she had no more power to refuse to be his partner than the 
bird has to escape from the snake. She had given him her 


ALL ALONG THE RLVER. 


335 


hand, and they were moving slowly, softly to the music of 
the soft, slow waltz. Myosotis, myosotis — mystic flower 
which means everlasting remembrance ! Would she ever 
forget this night ? Their last meeting — safest possible 
meeting place here in the shine of the lamps — in the sight 
of the multitude. Here she could so easily hold him at 
bay. Here she might speak to him lightly, as if she, too, 
were unconscious of the past. Here she was safe against 
his madness and her own weak, unstable heart, which flut- 
tered at his smallest word. 

And so the night wore on, and she danced with him more 
times than she could count, forgetting, or pretending to 
forget, other engagements ; going through an occasional 
waltz with another partner just for propriety’s sake, and 
hardly knowing who that partner was ; knowing so well 
that there was someone else standing against the wall, 
watching her every movement with the love-light in his 
eyes. 

Then came the period after supper, when they sat in the 
anteroom and let the dances go by, hearing the music of 
waltzes which they were to have danced together, hearing 
and heeding not. And then came a sudden scare at the 
thought of the hour. Was it late ? 

Late — very late ! 

The discovery fluttered and unnerved her, and she was 
scarcely able to collect her thoughts as he handed her into 
the carriage and shut the door. 

“ Surely it was a gray horse that brought me,” she 
exclaimed, and in the next minute she recognized Lost- 
withiel’s brougham — the same carriage in which she had 
been driven home through the rain upon that unforgotten 
night when his house sheltered her, when she saw his face 
for the first time. 

Yes, it was his carriage. She knew the color of the lin- 


336 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


ing, the little brass clock, the reading-lamp, the black 
panther rug. She pulled at the check-string, but without 
effect. The carriage drove on slowly, but steadily, to the 
end of the town. She let down the window and called to 
the coachman. There was only one man on the box, and 
he took no notice of her call. 

Yes, he had heard, perhaps, for he drew up his horse 
suddenly by the roadside, a little way beyond the town. A 
man opened the door and sprang in, breathless after run- 
ning. It was Lostwithiel. 

“You put me into your carriage," she cried distractedly. 
“ How could you make such a mistake ? Pray tell him to 
go back to the inn directly.” 

They were driving along the country road at a rapid 
pace, and he had seated himself by her side, clasping her 
hand. He pulled up the window nearest her, and pre- 
vented her calling to the coachman. 

“Why should you go back ? You will be home sooner 
with my horse than with the screw that brought you." 

“ But the fly will be waiting for me — the man will won- 
der." 

“ Let him wonder. He won’t wait very long, you may be 
assured. He will guess what has happened. In the con- 
fusion of carriages you took the wrong one. Isola, I am 
going to leave Cornwall to-night — to leave England — per- 
haps never to return. Give me the last few moments of my 
life here. Be merciful to me. I am going away — perhaps 
forever." 

“ Take me home," she said. “ Are you really taking me 
home ? Is this the right way ? " 

“ Of course it is the right way. Do you suppose I am 
going to drive you to London ? " 

He let down the glass suddenly, and pointed into the 
darkness. 


ALL ALONG THE ELVER . 


337 


“ Isola, do you see where we are ? There’s the sign-post 
at the cross-roads. There’s the tower of Tywardreath 
Church, though you can hardly see it in the dim light. 
Are you satisfied now ? ” 

He had drawn up the glass again. The windows were 
growing dim with the mist of their mingled breath ; the 
atmosphere was faint with the odor of the faded chrysan- 
\hemums on her gown and the carnation in the lapel of his 
coat. All that she could see of the outer world was the 
blurred light of the carriage lamps. The high-spirited 
horse was going up and down the hills at a perilous pace. 
At this rate the journey could not take long. 

And then — and then — he came back to the prayer he 
had breathed in her ear more than twelve hours ago in the 
wintry lane. He loved her, he loved her, he loved her ! 
Could she refuse to go away with him — having woven her- 
self into his life, having made him madly, helplessly in love 
with her ? Could she refuse ? Had any woman the right 
to refuse ? He appealed to her sense of honor. She had 
gone too far — she had granted too much already, granting 
him her love. She was in his arms in the dim light, in the 
faint, dream-like atmosphere. He was taking possession 
of her weak heart by all that science of love in which he 
was past master. Honor, conscience, fidelity to the absent, 
piety, innocence, were being swept away in that lava flood 
of passion. Helpless, irresolute, she faltered again and 
again. “ Take me home, Lostwithiel ! Have mercy ! Take 
me home.” 

He stopped those tremulous lips with a kiss — the kiss 
that betrays. The carriage dashed down a steep hill, 
rattled along a street so narrow that the wheels seemed to 
grind against the housefronts on each side, down hill again, 
and the horse was pulled up suddenly in a stony square, 
and the door opened, and the soft, sweet sea breeze blew 


33S 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


among her loosened hair and upon her uncovered neck, 
and she heard the gentle plish-plash of a boat moored 
against the quay at her feet. 

“ This is not home,” she cried piteously. 

“ Yes, it is home, love, our home for a little while — the 
home that can carry us to the other end of the world, if you 
will.” 

The quay, and the water, and the few faint lights here 
and there grew dark, and she knew no more till she heard 
the sailors crying, “ Yeo, heave, yeo,” and the heavy sails 
flapping, and the creak of the boom as it swayed in the 
wind, and felt the dancing motion of the boat as she cut 
her way through the waves, felt the strong arm that clasped 
her, and heard the low, fond voice that murmured in her 
ear, “ Isola, Isola, forgive me ! I could not live without 
you.” 

That which came afterward had seemed one long and lurid 
dream — a dream of fair weather and foul ; of peril and 
despair ; of passionate, all conquering love. 

To-day, as she lay supine in the afternoon silence — lying 
as Tabitha had left her, in a fevered sleep — the vision 
of that past came back upon her in all its vivid color- 
ings, almost as distinctly as it had reacted itself in her 
hour of delirium, when she had lived that tragic chap- 
ter of her life over again, and had felt the fury of the 
waves and breathed the chill, salt air of the tempest-driven 
sea, and had seen the moon riding high amid the cloud- 
chaos — now appearing, now vanishing, as if she, too, were 
a storm-driven bark in a raging sea. 

O God ! how vividly those hours came back ! The 
awful progress from Ushant to Arcachon ; the brooding 
darkness of the brief day ; the infinite horror of the long 
night ; the shuddering yacht, with straining spars, and 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


339 


broadside beaten by a heaving mass of water that struck 
her with the force of a thousand battering-rams, blow after 
blow ; each blow seeming as if the next must always be the 
last — the final crash and end of all things. The pretty, 
dainty vessel, long and narrow, rode like an eggshell on 
those furious waters — here a long wall of inky blackness, 
rising like a mountain-ridge and bearing down on the 
doomed ship, and beyond, as far as the eye could reach, 
a waste of surf, livid in the moonlight. What helpless 
insignificance, as of a leaf tossed on a whirlpool, when that 
mountainous mass took the yacht and lifted her on Cyclo- 
pean shoulders, and shook her off again into the black 
trough of the sea, as into the depths of hell ! And this 
not only once, nor a hundred times only, but on through 
that endless-seeming night, on in the sickly winter dawn, 
and in the faint yellow gleam of a rainy noontide — on 
through day that seemed mixed and entangled with night, 
as if the beginning of creation had come round again and 
the light were not yet divided from the darkness. 

Oh, those passionate, never-to-be-forgotten moments, 
when she had stood with him at the top of the companion, 
looking out upon those livid waters, over that sea of death ; 
fondly believing that each moment was to be their last ; 
that the gates of death were opening yonder — a watery way, 
a gulf to which they must go down, in a moment, in a little 
moment, in a flash, in a breath, at the next, or the next mad 
plunge of that hurrying bark. Yes, death was there, in 
front of them — inevitable, imminent, immediate — and life 
and sin, shame, remorse, were done with, along with the 
years that lay behind them, a page blotted and blurred with 
one passionate madness, which had changed the color of a 
woman’s life history. She knew not how she bore up 
against the force of that tempest ; clinging to him with her 
bare, wet arms ; held up by him ; crouching against the 


34 ° 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


woodwork, which shook and rattled with every blow of the 
battering-rams. She only knew that his arms were round 
her, that she was safe with him, even when the leaping surf 
rose high above her head, wrapping her round like a mantle, 
blinding, drowning her in a momentary extinction. She 
only knew that his lips were close to her ear, and that in an 
instant’s lull of those awful voices he murmured, “We are 
going to die, Isola. The boat cannot live through such a 
storm. We shall go down to death together.” And her 
lips turned to him with a joyful cry, “ Thank God ! ” 
Then again, in a momentary pause, he pleaded, “ Forgive 
me, love ; my stolen love, forgive me before we die ! ” 
And again, “ Was it a crime, Isola ? ” “ If it was, I forgive 

you,” she whispered, clinging to him as the blast struck 
them. 

Cruel revulsion of feeling, bitter irony of Fate, when the 
great grim waves — which had seemed like living monsters 
hurrying down upon them with malignant fury to tear 
and to devour — when the awful sea began to roar with a 
lesser voice, and the thunder of the battering-rams had a 
duller sound, and the bows of the yacht no longer plunged 
straight down into the leaden-colored pit ; no longer 
climbed those inky ridges with such blind impetus, as of a 
cockle-shell in a whirlpool. Bitter sense of loss and dismay 
when the gray, cold dawn lighted a quieter sea, and she 
heard the captain telling Lostwithiel that they had seen the 
worst of the storm, and that there was no fear now. He 
was going to put on more canvas : and hadn’t the lady 
better go below, where it was warm. She needn’t feel any- 
way nervous now. They would soon be in the roadstead 
off Arcachon. 

She had not felt the chill change from night to morning. 
She had not felt the surf that drenched her loose, entangled 


ALL ALONG THE ELVER . 


341 


hair. She hardly knew when or how Lostwithiel had 
wrapped her in his fur-lined coat ; but she found that she 
was so enveloped presently when she stumbled and stag- 
gered down to the cabin, and flung herself face downward 
upon the sofa, in a paroxysm of impotent despair. 

Death would have delivered her. The tempest was her 
friend ; and the tempest had passed her by, and left her 
lying there like a weed, more worthless than any weed that 
ever the sea cast up to rot upon the barren rocks. Yes, 
she was left there ; left in a life that sin had blighted ; 
loathsome to herself, hateful to her God. 

She locked herself in the cabin, while the hurrying foot- 
steps overhead told her that Lostwithiel was working with 
the sailors. 

An hour later, and he was at the cabin door, pleading for 
one kind word, entreating her to let him see her, were it 
only for a few moments, to know that she was not utterly 
broken down by the peril she had passed through. He 
pleaded in vain. She would give no answer — she would 
speak no word. Indeed, in that dull agony of shame and 
despair it seemed to her as if a dumb devil had entered 
into her. Her parched lips seemed to have lost the power 
of speech. She lay there, staring straight before her at all 
the swinging things on the cedar panel — the books and 
photographs — and lamps and frivolities, swaying and vi- 
brating with every movement of the sea. Her hands were 
clenched until the nails cut into the flesh. Her heart was 
throbbing with dull, slow beats that made themselves tor- 
turingly audible. Did God create his creatures for such 
agony ? Had she been foredoomed everlastingly — in that 
awful, incomprehensible, antenatal Eternity — foredoomed 
to this fallen state, to this unutterable shame ? 

Hours went by, she knew not how. Again and again 
Lostwithiel came to her door, and talked and entreated — 


342 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


Heaven knows how tenderly — with what deep contrition, 
with what fond pleading for pardon. But the dumb devil 
held her still. She wrapped herself in a sullen despair — 
not anger, for anger is active. Hers was only a supine 
resistance. 

At last she heard him come with one of the sailors, and 
she could make out from their whispering talk that they 
were goingto force open the door. Then she started up in 
a kind of fury, and went and flung herself against the 
dainty cedar panels. 

“ If you don’t leave me alone in my misery I will kill 
myself,” she cried. 

The long night was over ; and the sun was high. It 
seemed as if they were sailing over a summer sea, and 
through the scuttle port she saw a little foreign town nest- 
ling under the shelter of pine clad hills. 

She woke from brief and troubled slumbers to see this 
smiling shore ; and at first she fancied they must have sailed 
back to Cornwall, and that this was some unknown bay 
upon that rock-bound coast ; but the sapphire sea and the 
summer like sunshine suggested a fairer clime than rugged 
Britain. 

While she was looking out at the crescent shaped bay, and 
the long line of white villas, the anchor was being lowered. 
The sea was almost as smooth as a lake, and those tranquil 
waters had the color and the sheen of sapphire and emerald. 
She thought of the jasper sea — the sea of the Apocalypse, 
that tideless sea beside that land of the New Jerusalem, 
where there are no more tears, where there can be no more 
sin, a city of ransomed souls, redeemed from all earth's 
iniquity. 

A boat was being lowered. She heard the “ scroop ” of 
the rope against the hull ; she heard footsteps on the accom- 
modation ladder, and then the dip of oars, and presently 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


343 


the boat passed between her and the sunlit waters, and she 
saw Lostwithiel sitting in the stern, with the rudder lines 
in his hands, while two sailors were bending to their oars, 
with wind blown hair and cheery, smiling faces, broad and 
red in the gay morning sunshine. 

He was gone, and she breathed more freely. There was 
a sense of release in his absence ; and for the first time 
she looked round the cabin, where beautiful and luxurious 
things lay, thrown here and there in huddled masses of 
brilliant color. A Japanese screen, a masterpiece of gold 
and rainbow embroidery on a sea green ground, flung 
against the paneling at one end — chairs, vases, wickerwork 
tables overturned — Persian curtains wrenched from their 
fastenings and hanging awry — satin pillows that had drifted 
into a heap in one corner — signs of havoc elsewhere. She 
stood in the midst of all this ruin, and looked at her own 
reflection in a long Venetian glass fastened to the panel- 
ing, about the only object that had held its place through 
the storm. 

Her own reflection. Was that really herself, that ghastly 
image which the glass gave back to her ? The reflection 
of a woman with livid cheeks and blanched lips, with 
swollen eyelids, and dark rings of purple round the haggard 
eyes, and hair rough and tangled as Medusa’s locks, and 
bare shoulders from which the stained satin bodice had 
slipped away. Her wedding gown ? Could that defiled 
garment — the long folds of the once shining satin, draggled 
and befouled with the tar from the cordage and the spray 
from the sea, heavy and dripping with sea water — could 
these tawdy rags be the wedding gown she had put on in 
her proud and happy innocence in the old bedroom at 
Dinan, with mother and servants and a useful friend or 
two helping and hindering ? 

Oh, if they could see her now, those old friends of her 


344 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


unclouded childhood, the mother and father who had loved 
and trusted her, who had never spoken of evil things in 
her hearing, had never thought that sin could come near 
her. And she had fallen like the lowest of womankind. 
She had forfeited her place among the virtuous and happy 
forever. She, Martin Disney’s wife ! That good man, 
that brave soldier who had fought for queen and country — 
it was his wife who stood there in her shame, haggard and 
dishevelled. 

She flung her arms above her head and wrung her hands 
in a paroxysm of despair. Then, with a little cry, she 
plucked at the loose wild tresses as if she would have torn 
them from her head ; and then she threw herself upon the 
cabin floor in her agony, and groveled there, a creature for 
whom death would have been a merciful release. 

“ If I could die — if I could but die, and no one know,” 
she moaned. 

She lifted herself up again upon her knees ; and, with 
one hand upon the floor, looked round upon the wall of the 
cabin — looked among all that glittering array of yhatagans 
and barbaric shields, damascened steel and jeweled hilts, 
for some practical instrument with which she might take her 
hated life. And then came the thought of what must follow 
death, not for her in the dim incomprehensible eternity, but 
for those who loved her on earth, for those who would have 
to be told how she had been found, in her draggled wed- 
ding gown, stabbed by her own hand on board Lord Lost- 
withiel’s yacht. What a story of shame and crime for 
newspapers to embellish, and for scandal-mongers to gloat 
over ! No ! She dared not destroy herself thus. She 
must collect her senses, escape from her seducer, and keep 
the secret of her dishonor. 

She took off her gown, and rolled train and bodice into a 
bundle as small as she could make them. Then she looked 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


345 


about the cabin for some object with which to weight her 
bundle. Yes, that would do. A little brass dolphin that 
was used to steady the open door. That was heavy enough, 
perhaps. She put it into the middle of her bundle, tied a 
ribbon tightly round the whole, and then she opened the 
scuttle port and dropped her wedding garment into the 
sea. The keen winter wind, the wind from pine clad hills 
and distant snow mountains, blew in upon her bare neck 
and chilled her to the bone ; but it helped to cool the fever 
of her mind, and she sat down and leaned her head upon 
her clasped hands, and tried to think what she must do to 
escape from the toils in which guilty love had caught her. 

She must escape from the yacht. She must go back to 
England — somehow. 

She thought that if she were to appeal to Lostwithiel’s 
honor some spark of better feeling would prevail over that 
madness which had wrecked her, and he would let her go, 
he would take her back to England and facilitate her secret 
return to the home she had dishonored. But could she 
trust herself to make that appeal ? Could she stand fast 
against his pleading if he implored her to stay with him, to 
live the life that he had planned for her, the life that he 
had painted so eloquently, the dreamy, beautiful life amid 
earth's most poetic scenes, the life of love in idleness? 
Could she resist him if he should plead — it might be with 
tears — he, whom she adored, her destroyer and her divinity. 
No, she must leave the yacht before he came back to 
her. But how ? 

There were only men on board. There was no woman 
to whose compassion she could appeal, no woman to lend 
her clothes to cover her. She saw herself once again in 
the Venetian glass, in her long trained petticoat of muslin 
and lace, so daintily fresh when she dressed for the ball — 
muslin and lace soddened by the sea, torn to shreds where 


34 ^ 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


her feet had caught in the delicate flouncings as she stum- 
bled down the companion during last night’s storm. A 
fitting costume in which to travel from Arcachon to London, 
verily. She opened a door leading to an inner cabin, which 
contained bed and bath, and all toilet appliances. Hang- 
ing against the wall were three dressing gowns, the light- 
est and least masculine of the three being a robe of 
Indian camel’s hair, embroidered with dull brown silk — 
a neutral tinted, shapeless garment, with loose sleeves and 
a girdle. 

Here, within locked doors, she made her hurried toilet, 
with much cold water. She brushed her long, ragged hair 
with one of the humblest of the brushes. She would not 
take so much as a few drops from the great crystal bottle 
of eau de Cologne which was held in a silver frame sus- 
pended from the ceiling. Nothing of his would she touch, 
nothing belonging to the man who wanted to pour his 
fortune into her lap, to make his life her life, his estate her 
estate, his name her name, could she but survive the ordeal 
of the divorce court and shake off old ties. 

She rolled her hair in a large coil at the back of her 
head. She put on the camel’s hair dressing gown, and tied 
the girdle round her long, slim waist, and having done this 
she looked altogether a different .creature from that vision 
of haggard shame which she had seen just now with loath- 
ing. She had a curious puritan air in her sad colored rai- 
ment and braided hair. 

Scarcely had she finished when she heard the dip of oars, 
and looking out, in an agony of horror at the apprehension 
of Lostwithiel’s return, she saw a boat laden with two big 
milliner’s baskets, and with a woman sitting in the stern. 
The men who were rowing this boat were not the crew of 
the Vendetta. 

She had not long to wonder. She unlocked her door, 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


347 


and went into the adjoining cabin, while the boat came along- 
side, and woman and baskets were hauled upon the deck. 

Three minutes afterward the cabin-boy knocked at the 
door, and told her that there was a person from Arcachon 
to see her, a dressmaker with things that had been ordered 
for her. 

She unlocked the door, for the first time since she 
locked it last night, and found herself face to face with 
a smiling young person, whose black eyes and olive com- 
plexion were warm with the glow of the South, golden in 
the eyes, carnation on the plump oval cheeks. 

This young person had the honor to bring the trousseau 
which monsieur had sent for madame’s inspection. Mon- 
sieur had told her how sadly inconvenienced madame had 
been by the accident by which all her luggage had been 
left upon the quay at the moment of sailing. In truth, it 
must have been distressing for madame, as it had evidently 
been distressing for monsieur in his profound sympathy 
with madame, his wife. In the meantime she, the young 
person, had complied with monsieur’s orders, and had 
brought all that there was of the best and most delicate and 
refined for madame’s gracious inspection. 

The cabin-boy brought in the two baskets, which the 
milliner opened with an air, taking out the delicate lingerie, 
the soft silk and softer cashmere — peignoirs, frilled petti- 
coats, a fluff and flutter of creamy lace and pale satin 
ribbons, transforming simplest garments into things of 
beauty. She spread out her wares, chattering all the while, 
and then looded at madame for approval. 

Isola scarcely glanced at all the finery. She pointed to 
the only plain walking gown among all the delicate pretti- 
nesses, the silks and cashmeres and laces— a gray tweed 
tailor-gown, with no adornment except a little narrow black 
braid. 


348 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


“ I will keep that,” she said, “ and one set of underlinen, 
the plainest. You can take all the rest of the things back 
to your shop. Please help me to dress as quickly as you 
can. I want to go on shore in the boat that takes you 
back.” 

“ But, madame, monsieur insisted that I should bring 
a complete trousseau. He wished madame to supply 
herself with all things needful for a long cruise in the 
south.” 

“ He was mistaken. My luggage is safe enough. I shall 
have it again in a few days. I only want clothes to wear 
for a day or two. Kindly do what I ask.” 

Her tone was so authoritative that the milliner complied 
reluctantly, and murmuring persuasive little speeches while 
she assisted madame to dress. All that she had brought 
was of the most new — expressly arrived from Paris, from 
one of the most distinguished establishments in the Rue de 
la Paix. Fashions change so quickly — and the present 
fashions were so enchanting, so original. She must be 
pardoned if she suggested that nothing in madame’s ward- 
robe could be so new or so elegant as these last triumphs of 
an artistic faiseur. Madame took no heed of her eloquence, 
but hurried through the simple toilet, insisted upon all the 
finery being replaced in the two baskets, and then went 
upon the deck with the milliner. 

“ I am going on shore to his lordship,” she said, with 
quiet authority, to the captain. 

It was a deliberate lie, the first she had told, but not 
the last she would have to tell. 

She landed on the beach at Arcachon — penniless, but 
with a diamond ring on her wedding finger — her engage- 
ment ring — which she knew, by a careless admission of 
Martin Disney’s, to have cost fifty pounds. She left the 
milliner, and went into the little town, dreading to meet 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


349 


Lostwithiel at every step. She found a complacent 
jeweler who was willing to advance twenty-five napoleons 
upon the ring, and promised to return it to her on the 
receipt of that sum, with only the bagatelle of twenty 
francs for interest, since madame would redeem her pledge 
almost immediately. 

Furnished with this money, she drove straight to the 
station, and waited there in the most obscure corner she 
could find till the first train left for Bordeaux. At Bor- 
deaux she had a long time to wait, still in hiding, before 
the express left for Paris — and then came the long, lonely 
journey — from Bordeaux to Paris— from Paris to London 
— from London to Trelasco — it seemed an endless pilgrim- 
age, a nightmare dream of dark night and wintry day, 
made hideous by the ceaseless throb of the engine, the 
perpetual odor of sulphur and smoke. She reached 
Trelasco somehow, and sank exhausted in Tabitha’s arms. 

“ What day is it ? ” she asked faintly, looking round the 
familiar room as if she had never seen it before. 

“ Thursday, ma’am. You have been away ten days,” the 
old servant answered coldly. 

It was only the next day that Tabitha told her mistress 
she must leave her. 

“ There is no need to talk about what has happened,” she 
said. “ I have kept your secret. I have let no one know 
that you were away. I packed Susan off for a holiday the 
morning after the ball. I don’t believe anyone knows any- 
thing about you — unless you were seen yesterday on your 
way home.” 

Then came stern words of renunciation, a conscientious 
but rather narrow-minded woman’s protest against sin. 


35o 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

“ I, YOU, AND GOD CAN COMPREHEND EACH OTHER.” 

It was two months after Allegra’s wedding-day, and 
Martin Disney had been warned that the closing hour of 
the young life he had watched so tenderly was not far off. 
It might come to-morrow ; or it might not come for a week ; 
or the lingering flame might go flickering on, fainting and 
reviving in the socket, for another month. He must hold 
himself prepared for the worst. Death might come sud- 
denly at the last, like a thief in the night ; or by stealthy, 
gradual steps, and slowest progress from life to clay. 

He sat beside Isola’s sofa in the Roman lodging as he 
had sat beside her bed in that long illness at Trelasco, 
when her wandering mind appalled him more than her 
bodily weakness. He watched as faithfully as he had 
watched then, but this time without hope. 

Father Rodwell had been with her at seven o’clock upon 
the last three mornings, and had administered the sacra- 
ment to her and to her husband, and to the faithful Tabitha, 
one with them in piety and love. The priest thought that 
each celebration would be the last ; but she rallied a little 
as the day wore on, and lived till sunset ; lived through 
the long painful night ; and another day dawned, and he 
found her waiting for him in the morning, ready to greet 
him with her pale smile when he appeared upon the thresh- 
old of her room, after going up the staircase in saddest 
apprehension, dreading to hear that all was over, except 
the funeral service and the funeral bell. 

She insisted upon getting up and going into the drawing 
room, feeble as she was. Tabitha was so handy and so 
helpful that the fatigue of an invalid’s toilet was lightened 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 351 

to the uttermost. Tabitha and the colonel carried her from 
the bedroom to the drawing room upon her couch, and 
carried the couch back to the bedside in the evening. 
Before noon she was lying in the sunlit saloon, surrounded 
with flowers and photographs and books and newspapers, 
and all things that can beguile the monotonous hours of 
sickness. 

Nor was companionship ever wanting. Martin Disney 
devoted himself to her with an unfailing patience. Upon 
no pretense would he leave her for more than half an hour 
at a time — just the space of a walk to the Hill of Gardens, 
or the length of the Via de’ Condotti and the Corso ; just 
the space of a cigar in the loggia. 

He read to her, he talked to her, he waited upon her. 
Tabitha and he were her only nurses ; for Lottchen was a 
young woman of profound concentration of motive, and 
had early taken unto herself the motto, One baby, one 
nurse. She conscientiously performed her duty to her 
infant charge ; but she rarely lifted a finger to help anyone 
else. 

It was drawing toward the end of July. The removal to 
Switzerland had been impossible, in Isola’s weak state. 
The weather had been lovely hitherto — hot, and very hot, 
but not insupportable for those who could afford to dawdle 
and sleep away their mid day and afternoon existence — 
who’ had horses to carry them about in the early mornings, 
and a carriage to drive them in moonlit gardens and pictur- 
esque places. In the suburbs of the great city, across the 
arid Campagna yonder, at Tivoli, and Frascati, and Albano, 
and Castel Gandolfo, people had been revelling in the full- 
ness of the summer, living under Jove’s broad roof, with 
dancing and sports, and music and feasting, and rustic, 
innocent kisses, snatched amid the darkness of groves whose 
only lamps are fireflies— deep woods of ilex, where the 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


35 2 

nightingale sings long and late, and the grasshopper trills 
his good-night through the perfumed herbage. 

Here, in Rome, the heat was more oppressive, and the 
splashing of the city’s many fountains was the only relief 
from the glare and dazzle of the piazzas, the vivid white- 
ness of the great blocks of houses in the new streets and 
boulevards. Blinds were lowered, and shops were shut, in 
the blinding noontide heat, and through the early afternoon 
the eternal city was almost -as silent and reposeful as the 
sleeping beauty — to awaken at sundown to movement, and 
life, and music, and singing, in lighted streets and crowded 
cafes. 

Suddenly, in the dim gray of the morning, the slumberous 
calm of summer changed to howling wind and tropical rain — 
torrential rain, that fell in sheets of water, and filled every 
gutter, and splashed from every housetop, and ran in wild 
cascades from every alley on the steep hillsides. The 
Campagna was one vast lake, illumined with vivid flashes 
of lightning, and the thunder pealed and reverberated along 
the lofty parapets of the ruined aqueducts. The tall 
cypresses in the Pincian Gardens bent like saplings before 
that mighty wind, which seemed to howl and shriek its 
loudest as it came tearing down from the hill to whistle 
and rave among the housetops in the Piazza di Spagna. 

“ One would think the ghost of Nero were shrieking in 
the midst of the tempest,” said Isola, as she listened to the 
fitful sobbing of the wind late in the dull gray afternoon, 
while her husband and Father Rodwell sat near her couch, 
keeping up that sad pretense of cheerfulness, which love 
struggles to maintain upon the very edge of the grave — the 
broken-hearted make-believe of those who know that death 
waits at the door. 

“ There comes a shrill cry every now and then like the 
scream of a wicked spirit in pain.” 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


353 


“ Rome is full of ghosts,” answered the priest, “ but there 
are the shadows of the good and the great as well as of the 
wicked. Walking alone in twilight on the Aventine, I 
should hardly be surprised to meet the spirit of Gregory 
the Great wandering amid the scenes of his saintly life ; 
nor do I ever go into the Pantheon at dusk without half 
expecting to see the shade of Raphael. And there are 
others — some I knew in the flesh — Wiseman and Antonelli, 
Gibson, the sculptor, consummate artist and gentlest of 
men — yes, Rome is full of the shadows of the good and 
wise. One can afford to put up with Nero.” 

“ You don’t mean me to think that you believe in ghosts ? ” 
asked Isola, deeply interested. 

It was only five o’clock, yet the sky was gray with the 
grayness of late evening. Here in this land of light and 
sunshine there had been all day long the brooding gloom of 
storm-clouds, and a sky that was dark as winter. 

“ I won’t analyze my own feelings on the subject ; I will 
quote the words of a man at whose feet it was my happi- 
ness to sit sometimes when I was a lad at Oxford. Canon 
Mozley has not shrunk from facing the great problem of 
spiritual life in this world — of an invisible after-existence 
upon the earth when the body is dust, ‘ Is the mother of 
our Lord now existing?’ he asks, and answers , 1 Yes. I 
believe that all fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters are 
now existing. Nature has disposed of their bodies as far as 
we can trace her work ; but their souls remain. So I read 
in Homer, in Virgil, and in the New Testament. This 
existence I am permitted to believe is a conscious and active 
existence.’ Canon Mozley, the man who wrote those words 
and much more in the same strain, was not an idle visionary. 
If he could afford to believe in the presence of the dead 
among us, why so can I. And I believe that Gregory the 
Great has whispered at the ear of many a Holy Father in 


354 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


the long line of his successors, and has influenced many a 
cardinal’s vote, and has been an invisible power in many a 
council.” 

“ I like to believe in ghosts,” said Isola gently. “ But 
I thank God those that I love are still in this life.” 

She held out her hand with a curiously timid gesture to 
her husband, who clasped it tenderly, bending his lips to 
kiss the pale thin fingers. O Death, pity and pardon are 
so interwoven with thine image that neither pride noranger 
has any force against thy softening influence. She had 
been false. She had wronged him and dishonored herself, 
cruelly, cruelly, most cruelly ; but she had suffered and 
repented, and she was passing away from him. Let the 
broken spirit pass in peace. 

“ Hark ! ” she cried. 

That day wore itself out in storm and tempest, and the 
night came on like a fierce death-struggle ; and the wind 
raved and shrieked at intervals all through the night ; and 
again next day there were gloom and darkness, and a sky 
heaped up with masses of lead-colored cloud ; and again 
the torrential rain streamed from the housetops and splashed 
in the streets below ; a dreary day to be endured even by 
the healthy and the happy — a day of painful oppression for 
an invalid. Isola’s spirits sank to the lowest depth ; and, for 
the first time since Allegra’s marriage, she talked hopelessly 
of their separation. 

“ If I could only see her once more before I die,” she 
sighed. 

“ My dear love, you shall see her as soon as the railway 
can bring her here. Remember, it is you who have for- 
bidden me to send for her. You know how dearly she 
loves you ; how willingly she would come to you. I’ll tele- 
graph to her within half an hour.” 

“No, no, no,” Isola protested hurriedly. “ No, we can 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


355 


never meet again in this world. I took my farewell of her 
in the church. I meant it to be farewell. I was very happy 
for her sake when I saw her married to the man she loved. 
It was a selfish repining that made me ask for her just now. 
I would not have her summoned here for worlds. She is so 
happy at Venice ; happy in her honeymoon dream. Tell 
her nothing, Martin, nothing, till you can tell her that my 
days have ended peacefully. She has borne her burden for 
me in the past. I want her to be free from all care about 
me ; but not to forget me.” 

“ She will not forget, Isola. She loves you fondly and 
truly.” 

“ Yes, I am sure of that. She was dearer to me than my 
own sister ; cared for me much more than Gwendoline ever 
cared, though Gwen and I were always good friends. Poor 
frivolous Gwen ! She writes me affectionate letters, hoping 
she may get to Italy in the autumn, though it is impossible 
for her to come just now. And mother and father write to 
me just in the same way ; mother regretting that her health 
won’t allow her to leave Dinan ; father hoping to see me in 
the autumn. Their letters are full of hopefulness,” she 
concluded, with a faint touch of irony. 

Her husband read to her for the greater part of the long 
gloomy day. He read St. Thomas a Kempis for some part 
of the time. The book had been on the little table by her 
side throughout her illness. He read two or three of Fred- 
erick Robertson’s sermons ; and, for occasional respite from 
too serious thought, he read her favorite poems, “Adonais,” 
“Alastor,” and some of Shelley’s lovely lyrics, and those pas- 
sages in “Childe Harold ” which had acquired a new charm 
for her since she had grown familiar with Rome. 

“ Read to me about Venice,” she said, “and let me think 
of Allegra and Captain Hulbert. I love to fancy them 
gliding along those narrow, picturesque streets, in the 


356 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


great, graceful, ponderous gondola I remember so well. It 
is so nice to know of their happiness, and to know that 
they need never be parted.” 

So the long summer day — without the glow and glory of 
summer — wore on; and, except for her excessive languor and 
feebleness, there were no indications that the patient’s state 
was any worse than it had been for some weeks. The doc- 
tor came late in the afternoon, and felt her pulse, and 
talked to her a little ; but it was easy to see that his visit 
was only a formula. 

“You have such an excellent nurse, Mrs. Disney, that I 
consider my position almost a sinecure,” he said, smiling at 
the faithful Tabitha, who stood waiting for his instructions, 
and who never forgot the minutest detail. 

Tabitha came in from the adjoining bedroom every now 
and then, and adjusted the pillows on the sofa, and sprink- 
led eau de Cologne, or fanned the invalid with a large Japa- 
nese fan, or arranged the soft silken coverlet over her feet, 
or brought her some small refreshment in the way of a 
cup of soup or jelly, and tenderly coaxed and assisted 
her to take it, talking just as much or as little as seemed 
prudent, always careful neither to fatigue nor excite her 
charge. 

It was between eight and nine in the evening, and there 
was a gloomy twilight in the loggia, and in the garden 
beyond. The wind which had dropped in the afternoon 
had begun to rage again, as if not only Nero but all the 
wicked emperors were abroad in the air. 

Isola had begged that one of the windows might be 
opened, in spite of the tempestuous weather, and the cold 
damp breath of the storm crept into the room and chilled 
Martin Disney as he sat by his wife’s sofa, reading a Lon- 
don paper that had come by the evening post. 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


357 


The only artificial light in the room was a reading-lamp 
at the colonel’s elbow, shaded from the draft by the four- 
leaved screen which protected the invalid. The gloomy 
gray daylight had not quite faded ; and, through the half- 
open door opposite him, Martin Disney saw the white 
marble wall of the staircase, and some oleanders in stone 
vases that stood on the spacious landing. 

He had been reading to Isola nearly all day. He was 
reading to himself now, trying to forget his own grief in 
the consideration of a leading article which prophesied a 
European war, and the ultimate extinction of English influ- 
ence in continental politics. 

There was perfect stillness in the room. Isola had been 
lying with closed eyes a little time before, and he fancied 
that she was sleeping. 

The silence had lasted for nearly an hour, broken only 
by the shriek of the wind, and by the chiming of the quar- 
ters from the Church of La Trinita de’ Monte, when Col- 
onel Disney was startled by his wife’s hand clutching 
his arm, and his wife's agitated whisper sounding close 
to his ear. 

“ Martin, Martin ! Did you see him ?” 

She had lifted herself into a sitting position, she who had 
not sat up for many days past. 

The hectic bloom had faded from her cheeks and left 
them ashy pale. Her eyes seemed almost starting from 
her head, straining their gaze as if to penetrate the 
deepening shadows on the landing beyond the half-open 
door. 

“ My love, you have been dreaming,” said Disney, sooth- 
ing her with womanly gentleness. “ Lie down again, my 
poor dear. See, let me arrange the pillows and make you 
quite comfortable.” 

“ No, no ! I was not dreaming. I have not been asleep. 


358 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


He was there ; I saw him as plainly as I see you. He 
pushed the door a little further open and looked in at me. 
I saw his face in the lamplight, very pale.” 

Disney glanced at the door involuntarily. Yes, the aper- 
ture was certainly wider than when he looked at it last ; 
just as if someone’s hand had pushed the door further ajar. 
The hand of the wind no doubt. 

“ My dear girl, believe me, you were dreaming. No one 
could have approached that doorway without my hearing 
them.” 

“ I have been lying awake thinking all the time you 
been reading your paper, Martin. I never had less inclina- 
tion to sleep. I know that he was there looking in at me, 
with a smile upon his pale face. But he has gone. Thank 
God, he has gone ! Only I can’t help wondering how he 
came there, without our hearing his step upon the stone 
stair.” 

“ Who was it, Isola ? ” 

He knew what the answer would be. He thought her 
mind was wandering, and he knew there was only one image 
which could so agitate her. 

“ Lord Lostwithiel.” 

“ A delusion, Isa. Lord Lostwithiel is far away from 
Rome. Come, dear love, let me read to you again, and let 
us have our good Tabitha in to cheer you with a cup of tea, 
and to brighten up the room a little. We have been 
growing low-spirited under the influence of the gloomy 
weather.” 

He went out of the room on pretense of summoning 
Tabitha; and, having sent her to watch beside his wife, he 
ran quickly downstairs to find out if the street door were 
opened or closed. The door was shut and bolted. The 
servants on the ground floor had not opened it to anyone 
after five o’clock. 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER . 359 

There was no possibility of any stranger having entered 
the house since that hour. 

The end came that night, with an appalling suddenness. 
Isola had refused to be carried back to her bedroom at the 
usual time. She seemed to have a horror of going back to 
that room, as if the shadows lurking there were full of fear. 
Even Father RodwelPs presence, which generally had a 
soothing effect upon her nerves and spirits, failed to com- 
fort her to-night. She refused to lie in her usual position, 
and insisted upon sitting up, supported by pillows, facing 
the doorway at which her fancy had evoked Lostwithiel’s 
image. She would not allow the door to be shut, and there 
was the same strained look in her too brilliant eyes all the 
evening. 

Father Rodwell read aloud to her, going on with a history 
of St. Cecilia, in which she had been warmly interested ; but 
to-night he could see that her thoughts were not with the 
book. He went on all the same, hoping that the sound of 
his voice might lull her to sleep. The wind had gone down 
as the night advanced, and the stars were shining in the 
strip of sky above the Pincian Gardens. Colonel Disney 
was pacing up and down the loggia, smoking his pipe, in 
the cool darkness — full of saddest apprehensions. 

Her mind had been wandering, surely, when she had that 
fancy about Lostwithiel, he told himself. It was something 
more than a dream. And then he remembered those long 
nights of delirium after her boy was born — and above all, 
that one night, when she had fancied herself at sea in a 
storm, when she had tried to fling herself overboard. He 
knew now what scene she had reacted in that delirium, 
what the vision was which her wandering mind had con- 
jured out of the empty darkness. 

The priest left them before eleven o'clock, and Martin 


3 < 5 ° 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


Disney sat with his wife till long after midnight — Tabitha 
waiting quietly in the next room — before he could persuade 
her to go to bed. Isola was more wakeful than usual — 
though her slumbers had been much broken of late — and 
there was a restlessness about her which impressed her 
husband as a sign of evil. 

“ Is the storm over ? ” she asked by and by, with her face 
turned toward the loggia and the starlight above the gar- 
den. 

“ Yes, dearest, all is calm now.” 

“ And the boy ? ” she said, suddenly looking up at the 
ceiling above which the child slept with his nurse. “.He is 
asleep, of course.” 

“ I hope so. I went upstairs at nine o’clock, while Father 
Rodwell was reading to you, and gave him my good-night 
kiss. He was fast asleep.” 

“ I wonder whether he will ever think of me when he is 
a man,” she said musingly. 

“Can you doubt that? You will be his most sacred 
memory.” 

“ Ah,” she replied, “ he will never know ” 

The sentence remained unfinished. 

“ Will you carry me to my bed, Martin, the room begins 
to grow dark,” she said faintly. “I can hardly see your 
face.” 

He lifted the wasted form in his arms, and carried her 
with tenderest care into the next room, and to the pure 
white bed which had been made ready for her, the long net 
curtains parted, the coverlet turned down. He laid her 
there, as he had done many a night during that slow and 
monotonous journey toward the grave ; but her gentle 
acknowledgment of his carefulness was wanting to-night. 
Her head sank upon the pillow, her pale lips parted with a 
faint fluttering sigh, and all was still. 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 361 

This was how the end came — suddenly, painlessly. She 
died like an infant sinking to sleep. 

Colonel Disney laid his wife in the place she had loved, 
the cemetery under the shadow of the old Roman wall, in 
a verdant corner near Shelley’s grave. 

Burial follows death with dreadful swiftness in that 
southern land, and the earth closed over Isola before noon 
of the day after her death. 

Martin Disney waited to see the new-made grave cov- 
ered with summer's loveliest blossoms before he left the 
cemetery and went back to the house to which he had taken 
his fading wife in the lovely Italian springtime. He paced 
the desolate rooms, and wandered in and out between the 
drawing room and the sunny bedroom, with his snowy cur- 
tained bed, and looked at this object and that with tear- 
dimmed eyes and an aching heart. 

She was gone ! That page in his life- history was closed 
forever. And now he had but one purpose and one de- 
sire — to settle his account with the scoundrel who had 
destroyed her. He had waited till she was at rest : and 
now the long agony of waiting was over. Nothing could 
touch her more ; and he was free to bring her seducer to 
book. 

He had telegraphed in the morning to Captain Hulbert 
at Venice, but there had been no reply so far ; and he 
could only suppose that Allegra and her husband had 
left the city upon one of those excursions which his sister 
had described to him as diversifying their quiet life in 
their rooms on the grand canal. He had not been at home 
long, and his tired eyes were still dazed and blinded by the 
flood of sunlight which the servants had let in upon the 
rooms after the funeral, when a telegram was brought to 
him. It was from Brindisi. 


362 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


“ The Eurydice went down with all hands last night, off 
Smyrna. My brother was on board. I am on my 
way to Greece. If you can be spared go to Allegra. 

“ Hulbert.” 

Martin Disney knew later that it was between eight and 
nine o’clock that the Eurydice struck upon a rock, and every 
soul on board her perished. 

The boy and his nurse went back to Trelasco under 
Tabitha’s escort, and they were followed to Cornwall soon 
afterward by the new Lord Lostwithiel and his wife, who 
established themselves at The Mount, to the great satisfac- 
tion of the neighborhood, where it was felt that the local 
nobleman had again become a permanent institution. Alle- 
gra and her husband took Martin Disney’s son under their 
protection in the absence of his father, who was fighting in 
the Soudan, and who did not revisit the Angler’s Rest till 
two years after his wife’s death, when he returned, honora- 
bly distinguished by his services, a V. C., and a broken man; 
returned to live a tranquil life among the books in the 
library which he had built for himself, and to watch the 
growth of his son, whose every look and tone recalled the 
image of his dead wife. Sometimes, on drowsy summer 
afternoons, smoking his pipe under the tulip tree, while the 
Fowey River rippled by in the sunshine, it seems to him as 
if Isola’s pensive loveliness, and the years that he had lived 
with her, and the tears that he had shed for her, and the 
infinite pity which had blotted out all sense of his deep 
wrong, were only the transient phases of a long sad dream 
— the dream of a love that was never returned. 

“ And yet, and yet,” he said to himself, after lengthened 
meditation, with unseeing eyes fixed upon the movement of 
the tide, “ I think she loved me. I think her heart was 


ALL ALONG THE RIVER. 


363 


mine from the hour her tears welcomed me back to this 
house, until her last sigh. God help all young wives whom 
their husbands leave alone in their youth and beauty to 
stand or fall in the hour of temptation.” 

Idly exploring the contents of the secretaire in the draw- 
ing room one day, Martin Disney found the telegraphic 
message which his wife had written — and left unsent — 
before the hunt ball. 


THE END. 






























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